BS  2665  .V36  1918  c.l 
Vance,  James  I.  1862-1939 
The  life  of  service 


THE  LIFE  OF  SERVICE 


By  James  I.  Vance,  D.D. 

Tendency  :  The  Effect  of  Trend  and  Drift 
in  the  Development  of  Life    .  net  $\.2^ 

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The  Eternal  in  Man.    International  Leader's 
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"  An  appeal  to  the  dignity  of  manhood,  a  call  for 
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The  Rise  of  a  Soul.  A  Stimulus  to 
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Life's  Terminals.    1 2mo,  boards,  net  35  c. 

A  clarion-noted  call  to  conscience  and  Christian 
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presentation  of  the  characteristics  of  true  manhood." 
—  The  Living  Church. 


THE  LIFE   OF  SERVICE 


SOME  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINES  FROM  PAUL'S 
EXPERIENCE  IN  THE  EPISTLE  Tpri'il^  I 
THE   ROMANS 


BY 

JAMES  l/ VANCE,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Author  of  "Life's  Terminals,'*  "Tendency,"  "The  Young  Man 

Foursquare,"  "The  Rise  of  a  Soul,"  "The  Eternal  in 

Man,"  "Royal  Manhood,"  etc. 


New  York  Chicago 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  191 8,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  N.  Wabash  Ave. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:     75     Princes    Street 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  MY  MOTHER 

WHO  WENT  HOME 

WITH  THE  EIGHTH  CHAPTER  OF 

ROMANS 

AS  THE  LAST  WORD  FROM 

THE  BOOK 

BEFORE  MEETING  THE  LIVING  WORD  "  FACE  TO  FACE  " 


FOREWORD 

THE  chapters  which  follow  are  a  series  of  ad- 
dresses delivered  by  the  author  at  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  of  Christian  Workers,  held 
at  East  Northfield,  Massachusetts,  August,  1917. 
They  do  not  in  any  sense  attempt  a  systematic  study 
of  doctrine,  or  even  a  treatment  of  all  the  doctrines 
presented  by  Paul  in  the  doctrinal  portion  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans.  They  are  merely  suggestive, 
and  rather  an  effort  to  dwell  on  certain  aspects  of 
Paul's  spiritual  experience,  and  show  how  his  doc- 
trinal views,  especially  as  stated  in  the  Romans,  were 
an  expression  of  his  experience. 

To  divorce  doctrine  from  experience  in  the  aver- 
age Christian  is  calamitous.  It  is  to  empty  experi- 
ence of  strength  and  to  sap  doctrine  of  life.  How 
much  more  calamitous  it  must  be  to  study  the  doc- 
trines Paul  taught  apart  from  the  life  he  lived,  to 
divorce  his  creed  from  his  service ! 

J.  I.  V. 

Nashville,  Tenn. 


CONTENTS 

I.   The  Motive  of  a  Great  Life — Paul's 

Portrait  of  Himself     .       .       .        .HI 
II.   The   Remedy   for   a   Lost   World — 

Paul's  Gospel 29 

III.  The  Atonement — Paul's  Doctrine  of 

Salvation 43 

IV.  The    Trouble    with    the    World — 

Paul's  Doctrine  of  Sin        ...       63 
V.   Optimism — Paul's  Attitude  to  Life     .       75 
VI.   Where  the  Big  Creeds  Blend — Paul's 

Theology 93 

VII.    Predestination — Paul's  Doctrine  of  the 

Divine  Decrees      .       .       .       .       .117 
VIII.    Inseparable  Love — Paul's  Doctrine  of 

Assurance 139 

IX.    The   Potter   and   the   Clay — Paul's 

Doctrine  of  God's  Work     .       .       .151 
X.   The   Alien — Paul's    Doctrine    of   the 

Races 169 

XI.   A  Stumble  but  not  a  Fall — Paul's 

Doctrine  of  Perseverance   .       .        .185 
XII.    Internationalism — Paul's  Doctrine  of 

Humanity       .       .       ....     203 


I 

THE  MOTIVE  OF  A  GREAT  LIFE— PAUL'S 
PORTRAIT  OF  HIMSELF 


"  Paul,  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ,  called  to  be  an  apostle, 
separated  unto  the  gospel  of  God."  — Romans  i  :  i. 

"  I  am  debtor  both  to  the  Greeks,  and  to  the  Barbarians ; 
both  to  the  wise  and  to  the  unwise.  So  as  much  as  in  me 
is,  I  am  ready  to  preach  the  gospel  to  you  that  are  at  Rome 
also."  —Romans  i  :  14,  15- 


THE  MOTIVE  OF  A  GREAT  UFE— PAUUS 
PORTRAIT  OF  HIMSELF, 

THE  key  of  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  is  stated 
in  the  opening  words, — "  Paul,  a  servant  of 
Jesus  Christ."  This  is  Paul's  autobiography. 
It  is  the  portrait  of  the  great  apostle  by  himself.  It 
is  the  title  by  which  he  desires  to  be  known.  It  is 
the  role  he  is  ambitious  to  play.  He  is  careful  to 
paint  but  a  single  feature  into  the  portrait :  it  is  that 
of  service.  Paul  announces  himself  "  a  servant  of 
Jesus  Christ."  And  so  the  epistle  to  the  Romans 
might  be  called  the  creed  and  program  of  "  a  life 
of  service." 

The  book  answers  two  big  questions:  first,  what 
a  servant  of  Christ  should  believe ;  and  second,  what 
a  servant  of  Christ  should  do.  In  thus  presenting 
the  creed  and  program  of  Christian  service,  the 
epistle  divides  itself  sharply  into  two  parts,  the  first 
eleven  chapters  dealing  with  Christian  doctrines,  and 
the  remaining  five  with  Christian  duties.  The  doc- 
trinal part  of  the  book,  opening  with  the  announce- 
ment of  "  Paul  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ,"  closes 
with  a  sublime  ascription  to  the  servant's  Master: 
**  For  of  Him  and  through  Him  and  to  Him  are  all 
things ;  to  Whom  be  glory  forever.    Amen." 

Paul  was  an  enthusiastic  servant.  His  Master  was 
his  hero.    Paul  states  his  highest  ambition  when  he 

13 


14       THE  MOTIVE  OF  A  GREAT  LIFE 

says:  "  Whose  I  am  and  Whom  I  serve."  The  duty 
part  of  the  book,  which  is  immediately  preceded  by 
this  subHme  ascription,  opens  with  a  conclusion  that 
lays  all  life  on  the  altar :  "  I  beseech  you,  therefore, 
brethren,  by  the  mercies  of  God,  that  ye  present  your 
bodies  a  living  sacrifice,  holy,  acceptable  unto  God, 
which  is  your  reasonable  service.'*  The  man  who 
steps  out  in  the  opening  line  of  the  doctrinal  part  of 
the  book  as  a  servant,  here  in  the  opening  line  of  the 
duty  part  of  the  book  proclaims  his  vocation  as  that 
of  service.  The  key  word  of  the  doctrinal  half  of 
Romans  is  "servant,"  and  to  the  duty  half  is 
**  service." 

In  the  chapters  which  follow,  the  effort  will  be  to 
present  some  Christian  doctrines  from  Paul's  expe- 
rience as  revealed  in  this  great  epistle.  Our  study 
will  thus  be  confined  to  the  first  or  doctrinal  portion 
of  the  book,  leaving  untouched  the  more  practical, 
and  to  many  perhaps  the  more  interesting,  portion. 
Even  with  this  limitation,  I  can  hope  to  do  little 
more  than  touch  on  some  of  the  fundamental  doc- 
trinal beliefs  in  the  creed  of  Christ's  servant.  I 
shall  try  then  to  assemble  out  of  this  wonderful  let- 
ter to  the  church  in  the  chief  city  of  the  ancient 
world  some  of  the  big  convictions  of  a  life  of  service, 
some  of  the  articles  in  the  creed  of  a  man  who  wrote 
himself  not  into  the  history  of  a  nation  or  an  age, 
but  into  world  life  and  history,  by  the  way  he  served 
God  and  humanity. 

In  this  opening  chapter  we  are  to  consider  the 
motive  or  driving  power  in  a  life  of  service.  What 
is  the  motive  of  a  great  life  ? 


PAUL'S  PORTRAIT  OF  HIMSELF     15 

Paul  salutes  the  church  in  Rome,  and  says :  "  To 
all  that  be  in  Rome,  beloved  of  God,  called  to  be 
saints,  grace  to  you,  and  peace  from  God  our  Father, 
and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  H-e  tells  them  how  proud 
he  is  of  them,  and  says :  "  I  thank  my  God  through 
Jesus  Christ  for  you  all  that  your  faith  is  spoken  of 
throughout  the  whole  world."  He  tells  them  of  his 
profound  concern  for  them,  and  says :  "  For  God  is 
my  witness,  whom  I  serve  with  my  spirit,  in  the 
gospel  of  His  Son,  that  without  ceasing  I  make 
mention  of  you  always  in  my  prayers."  He  tells 
them  how  homesick  he  is  to  see  them,  and  says: 
"  For  I  long  to  see  you,  that  I  may  impart  unto  you 
some  spiritual  gifts,  to  the  end  ye  may  be  estab- 
lished." 

And  then,  before  he  knows  it,  he  has  given  him- 
self away.  He  has  laid  his  life  bare  and  open  be- 
fore them.  He  has  named  the  thing  in  his  great 
soul  that  cuts  to  the  bone.  He  says :  "  I  am  debtor." 
There  is  the  motive  that  drove  his  life.  There  is 
the  dynamo  that  ran  all  his  tireless  activities.  There 
is  the  life  motor  which  furnished  the  power  to  hand 
and  head  and  heart. 

LIFE  STIMULATED  BY  MOTIVE 

Life  is  to  be  estimated  by  its  motives.  It  is  not 
to  be  estimated  by  its  pretensions.  Pretensions  are 
cheap.  They  are  not  as  a  rule  sincere.  They  make 
claims  based  on  fictitious  assets.  The  world  has 
long  since  ceased  to  give  anything  but  scorn  and 
contempt  to  pretense. 

It  is  not  to  be  estimated  by  professions.    It  is  easy 


16       THE  MOTIVE  OF  A  GREAT  LIFE 

to  profess.  It  takes  no  red  blood.  It  calls  for  no 
sacrifice.  It  demands  no  Golgotha.  Profession  need 
not  dig  deeper  than  the  skin  into  a  man's  life.  We 
would  rather  people  would  profess  less  and  prac- 
tice more. 

It  is  not  to  be  estimated  even  by  aspirations.  It 
is  a  fine  thing  to  aspire.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  lift 
your  face  to  heaven,  and  long  to  enter  in.  But 
aspirations  may  be  sordid.  It  may  be  selfish.  It 
may  be  the  ambition  of  a  small  soul  out  for  nothing 
under  God's  heaven  but  its  own  betterment. 

It  is  not  to  be  estimated  chiefly  by  its  products, 
by  its  actual  output,  by  its  deeds,  for  we  want  to 
know  what  is  back  of  a  man's  deeds.  It  is  not  what 
he  does,  but  why  he  does  it.  He  may  be  doing  a 
thing  that  is  fine  in  itself,  but  if  his  motive  is  yel- 
low, his  deed  is  soon  streaked  with  yellow.  He  may 
seem  to  be  heroic,  but  if  he  is  prompted  by  con- 
siderations that  are  base,  his  motive  blackens  and 
defames  his  deeds. 

It  is  the  motive  that  is  the  unerring  and  infallible 
barometer  of  life.  What  is  your  motive?  Why  are 
you  doing  what  you  do?  Why  are  you  seeking 
what  you  seek?  What  sustains  you?  What  drives 
you?  What  is  the  thing  that  digs  down  to  the  bone 
in  your  soul?  You  have  given  yourself  away  when 
you  have  named  your  motive,  for  your  motive  is  the 
dynamo  that  drives  your  life. 

This  is  the  way  we  estimate  everything  else.  If 
you  want  to  take  the  measures  of  an  automobile, 
you  do  more  than  examine  the  upholstery  and  look 
at  the  paint  and  measure  the  wheel  base.    You  lift 


PAUL'S  PORTRAIT  OF  KIMSELF       17 

the  hood  and  scrutinize  the  engine.  That  throbbing, 
driving  thing  there  tells  the  story.  The  size  of  the 
motor  is  the  size  of  the  car,  and  what  the  motor  is 
to  the  car,  motive  is  to  life.  If  you  want  to  take 
the  measure  of  a  train,  you  must  do  more  than 
count  the  coaches  and  photograph  the  crew.  You 
must  lay  your  hand  alongside  of  the  engineer's  on 
the  throttle,  and  get  the  tonnage  of  the  locomotive. 
It  is  the  thing  that  pulls  the  train  that  rates  it,  and 
what  the  throttle  is  to  the  train,  motive  is  to  life. 
If  you  would  estimate  a  factory,  you  must  do  more 
than  count  the  machines  and  investigate  the  pay- 
roll and  inspect  the  grounds.  You  must  visit  the 
power  house.  The  size  of  the  plant  is  the  size  of 
its  power,  and  what  the  power  house  is  to  the  fac- 
tory, motive  is  to  life.  The  size  of  your  motive  is 
the  size  of  your  life. 

Therefore,  Paul  gives  himself  away  when  he 
names  his  motive.  He  lays  bare  his  soul.  What 
will  such  a  man  say  about  a  thing  so  supreme?  His 
career  was  geared  to  the  highest  man-power  that 
ever  drove  a  life.  Paul  was  one  of  the  greatest  men 
the  world  has  known.  Some  consider  him  the  great- 
est, and  rank  him  next  to  that  matchless  One  Who 
was  divine  as  well  as  human.  Surely  it  is  worth 
while  to  discover  his  secret,  to  get  at  his  explana- 
tion. Here  it  is.  "  I  am  debtor."  That  was  all. 
It  was  quite  sufficient.  "  I  am  debtor,"  and  there- 
fore all  the  rest. 

What  does  he  mean?  How  did  he  get  in  debt? 
What  have  his  creditors  ever  done  to  place  him 
under  a  life  obligation?     Most  of  them  have  never 


18       THE  MOTIVE  OF  A  GREAT  LIFE 

seen  him.  They  have  never  heard  him.  They  know 
nothing  about  him.  They  are  not  concerned  that  he 
make  payment.  Then  why  is  Paul  so  loaded  down 
with  debt?  It  is  perfectly  evident.  He  feels  that 
he  has  what  the  world  needs.  He  has  come  into 
possession  of  a  blessing  that  must  be  shared ;  not  be- 
cause the  world  has  ever  done  anything  for  him, 
but  because  he  is  where  he  can  do  something  for 
the  world,  Paul  harnesses  his  life  to  the  matchless 
dynamic  of  service,  and  says :  "  I  am  debtor." 

MOTIVE  BORN   OF  EXPERIENCE 

And  so  Paul  lifts  his  motive  out  of  a  life  experi- 
ence. He  is  not  saying  this  because  he  cherishes 
certain  altruistic  sentiments,  or  entertains  certain 
theories  of  ethical  culture.  He  could  stand  with  the 
best  in  these,  but  debt  was  more  than  an  academic 
question  with  Paul.  It  was  a  thing  that  broke  in 
on  him  in  his  biggest  mood.  It  was  a  conviction 
inwrought  into  the  very  fiber  of  his  life.  It  was 
something  he  had  learned,  not  at  school  nor  by  ob- 
servations, but  in  an  experience  that  shook  his  life 
to  its  foundations.     What  was  that  experience? 

Paul's  life  motive  was  not  born  of  humanitarian- 
ism.  Some  get  their  motives  there.  They  see  what 
people  need.  They  behold  the  woe  and  misery  of 
the  world,  and  feel  that  they  can  help,  and  that  be- 
cause there  is  need,  they  are  debtors.  Such  debts 
are  sometimes  repudiated,  especially  when  the  bene- 
ficiaries of  our  humanitarian  impulses  turn  against 
us. 

It  was  not  born  of  political  or  social  expediency. 


PAUL'S  PORTRAIT  OF  HIMSELF       19 

Some  get  their  motive  there.  They  feel  that  they 
have  a  theory  that  will  save  the  world.  If  they  can 
only  get  it  accepted,  all  will  be  well.  Paul  felt  that 
way  about  his  gospel.  But  I  think  his  motive  digs 
deeper  into  his  life  than  his  estimate  of  the  precious- 
ness  of  the  gospel,  and  his  belief  that  it  was  the  one 
thing  that  would  save  the  world. 

Neither  was  it  born  of  any  belief  in  his  personal 
ability  or  fitness.  Some  are  self-conscious  of  their 
powers  of  leadership.  Some  nations  are  obsessed 
with  their  own  superlative  culture,  and  feel  called 
to  make  the  rest  of  the  world  like  themselves.  Paul 
certainly  had  ability,  but  he  was  not  conscious  of 
it.  Never  was  there  a  man  more  humble.  He  said 
he  was  not  worthy  to  be  called  an  apostle,  that  he 
was  the  least  of  all  saints,  that  he  was  the  chief  of 
sinners.  It  was  not  because  he  felt  himself  to  be 
a  super-man  that  he  said :  "  I  am  debtor." 

His  motive  was  begotten  of  a  supernatural  experi- 
ence. Some  do  not  like  the  word  "  super  natural." 
I  have  never  learned  to  get  along  without  it.  I 
have  never  been  able  to  classify  some  things  in  any 
other  way.  They  are  so  big  that  all  vocabularies 
run  out,  and  all  phrases  fall  short.  I  am  glad  there 
are  some  things  too  big  for  the  phraseology  of  the 
natural.  Paul's  life  motive  was  born  of  contact 
with  the  eternal. 

Let  us  follow  him  on  his  way  to  Damascus  and 
see  God  halt  him  and  blaze  the  light  of  heaven 
around  his  astonished  spirit.  Let  us  listen  to  the 
voice  which  said :  "  Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest 
thou  me  ?,"  and  to  Paul's  reply :  "  Who  art  thou, 


20       THE  MOTIVE  OF  A  GREAT  LIFE 

Lord?,"  and  to  Christ's  answer:  "I  am  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  whom  thou  persecutest/'  At  last  the  un- 
avoidable Christ  fills  the  road  and  blocks  the  way. 
Paul  sees  the  Crucified.  He  is  face  to  face  with 
the  Hero  of  Calvary.  Trembling  and  astonished, 
his  great  soul  falls  down  in  full  and  passionate  sur- 
render to  Christ,  and  says :  "  Lord,  what  wilt  thou 
have  me  to  do?"  The  motive  that  is  henceforth 
to  master  his  life  has  been  born. 

Paul's  conversion  differed  radically  from  that  of 
the  other  apostles.  They  first  came  to  know  Christ 
as  man,  and  slowly  His  godhood  dawned  on  them. 
Paul  first  came  face  to  face  with  Christ  as  God,  and 
instantaneously  His  glorious  deity  flashed  on  him  in 
all  its  mighty  and  compelling  power.  In  a  sheet 
of  blinding  glory  light,  Paul  had  a  revelation  of 
what  he  owed,  not  to  his  nation  or  age,  not  to 
society  or  civilization,  but  of  what  he  owed  to  One 
Who  loved  him  and  died  for  him.  Then  and  there 
his  great  soul  surrendered  to  its  supreme  life  mo- 
tive, and  he  said :  "I  am  debtor.  What  things 
were  gain  to  me,  those  I  counted  lost  for  Christ; 
yea,  doubtless,  and  I  count  all  things  but  lost  for 
the  excellency  of  the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  my 
Lord!" 

Elsewhere  he  describes  his  motive  in  somewhat 
different  language,  but  in  words  which  mean  the 
same.  In  one  place  he  says :  "  The  love  of  Christ 
constraineth  us."  What  he  means,  of  course,  is  that 
he  had  gotten  such  a  conception  of  the  Savior's 
love  that  his  whole  life  is  dominated  and  controlled 
by  obligation  to  Christ.     In  another  place  he  says: 


PAUL'S  PORTRAIT  OF  HIMSELF       21 

"  I  could  wish  myself  accursed  for  my  brethren," 
but  it  is  more  than  nationalism  that  is  playing  on 
his  soul.  It  is  more  than  patriotism.  It  is  a  pas- 
sionate yearning  that  Christ  may  see  of  the  travail 
of  His  soul,  and  be  satisfied. 

THE  DRIVING  POWER  OF  THIS   MOTIVE 

Let  us  try  to  form  some  estimate  of  the  driving 
power  of  this  motive  in  Paul's  life.  Let  us  con- 
sider how  it  widened  his  horizon.  He  says :  "  I  am 
debtor  both  to  the  Greeks  and  to  the  barbarians, 
both  to  the  wise  and  to  the  unwise.''  He  seems  to 
say :  "I  am  more  than  a  Jew.  I  am  a  citizen  of  the 
world."  He  has  become  a  cosmopolitan,  an  interna- 
tionalist, because  he  has  caught  Christ's  world  vi- 
sion. Being  a  debtor  to  Christ,  he  must  see  what 
Christ  sees.  He  must  be  concerned  for  those  for 
whom  Christ  is  concerned.  He  must  take  on  his 
heart  the  burdens  which  rest  on  Christ's  heart,  and 
on  his  shoulder  the  load  Christ  carries.  He  must 
spend  and  be  spent  to  do  everything  anywhere 
Christ  wants  done. 

Let  us  consider  what  it  summoned  him  to  endure. 
He  never  broke  down  before  anything.  He  felt 
that  wherever  he  went,  bonds  and  imprisonment 
awaited  him.  But  he  was  not  disturbed.  It  was  a 
part  of  the  debt  he  delighted  to  pay.  One  night 
he  is  in  jail  with  Silas.  He  is  spending  the  time 
singing.  He  is  not  unhappy.  He  is  paying  the  debt 
he  delighted  to  pay.  He  is  doing  something  for 
the  Hero  of  Calvary.  He  is  shipwrecked.  He  is 
stoned.     Read   the   catalogue   of   his   trials   in   the 


22       THE  MOTIVE  OF  A  GREAT  LIFE 

eleventh  chapter  of  second  Corinthians.  He  was 
ready  for  anything.  His  motive  never  drew  back 
before  any  cross.  He  had  seen  Christ's  cross,  and 
all  other  crosses  were  small. 

Let  us  think  of  what  this  motive  enabled  him  to 
achieve.  Follow  him  in  his  missionary  journeys. 
He  never  seemed  to  rest.  Wherever  he  went  he 
organized  churches  and  was  ever  seeking  out  indi- 
viduals. There  was  never  a  stale  moment  in  his  life. 
He  was  never  at  a  loss  for  something  to  do.  He 
said :  "  I  am  debtor,"  and  that  slew  every  dull,  stale 
hour  of  life.  See  him  in  those  pagan  cities.  Watch 
him  at  Ephesus.  Why  does  he  not  throw  up  his 
task?  Why  does  he  keep  on  trying  to  stay  that  tide 
of  licentiousness  and  idolatry?  It  is  because  he  is 
debtor.  See  him  in  Athens.  Listen  to  his  great 
oration.  And  then  hear  the  drivel  of  the  crowd  as 
they  make  comment  on  his  speech.  Why  does  he  cast 
his  pearls  before  swine?  Why  does  he  throw  him- 
self away  in  an  impossible  venture?  It  is  because 
he  is  debtor.  See  him  in  Jerusalem.  Surely  they 
will  regard  him  in  his  own  city.  But  here  his  treat- 
ment is  most  cruel.  The  mob  try  to  kill  him,  and 
with  difficulty  the  officers  flee  with  him  to  a  place 
of  refuge.  Hear  them  as  they  ride  through  the 
night  to  keep  the  prisoner  from  being  killed.  Why 
does  Paul  keep  on?  It  is  because  he  was  debtor. 
He  never  wavered  on  any  battle  line. 

It  was  this  motive  into  which  he  dipped  his  pen 
when  he  came  to  write  the  larger  part  of  the  New 
Testament.  What  would  the  New  Testament  be 
without    Paul's    contribution ?      He    says :    "I    am 


PAUL'S  PORTRAIT  OF  HIMSELF       23 

debtor,"  and  writes  on,  and  there  is  no  stain  on  his 
message.  You  can  trust  a  man  who  writes  with 
that  motive  behind  his  pen.  Paul  has  earned  the 
right  to  say  as  he  draws  near  the  close  of  his  career : 
"  I  have  fought  a  good  fight,  I  have  finished  my 
course,  I  have  kept  the  faith.  Henceforth  there  is 
laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  righteousness  which  the 
Lord,  the  righteous  Judge,  will  give  me  in  that  day." 
Yet  he  also  says :  "  I  count  not  myself  to  have  ap- 
prehended, but  this  one  thing  I  do.  I  press  toward 
the  mark  for  the  prize  of  the  high  caUing  of  God 
in  Christ  Jesus."  It  is  as  if  he  entered  the  very 
gates  of  heaven,  sped  across  its  shining  portal  by 
the  same  motive  which  drove  him  on  earth.  I  fancy 
he  is  still  serving  his  glorious  Lord,  and  if  some 
celestial  questioner  were  to  ask  why,  he  would  get 
the  old  answer :  "  I  am  debtor." 

THE  MOTIVE  OF  A  GREAT  LIFE. 

This  is  the  motive  of  a  great  life.  I  grant  you 
people  sometimes  do  big  things  from  other  motives, 
but  they  would  be  bigger  if  done  from  the  best 
motive.  There  is  something  better  than  gain,  than 
reward,  than  personal  happiness.  There  is  some- 
thing better  than  heaven.  It  is  service.  "  I  am 
among  you  as  one  that  serveth."  There  is  where 
we  get  near  to  God,  and  where  we  get  like  God. 

"  I  am  debtor,"  not  because  people  have  done 
anything  for  me,  or  ever  can.  They  may  not  know 
me.  They  may  never  know  me.  I  am  debtor  be- 
cause I  have  been  blessed,  because  I  have  something 
they  need,  because  there  are  hungry  people  in  the 


24.       THE  MOTIVE  OF  A  GREAT  LIFE 

world,  and  I  have  a  loaf  of  bread,  because  there 
are  thirsty  people,  and  I  can  give  them  a  cup  of 
water,  because  there  are  issues  that  need  champion- 
ing, and  I  have  a  life  to  devote,  because  my  country 
needs  me,  and  I  have  something  I  can  lay  upon  its 
altar.  Because  of  all  this,  I  am  debtor.  But  this 
is  not  all.    It  is  not  even  much. 

Because  One  loved  me  and  gave  Himself  for  me, 
I  am  debtor.  We  must  get  the  supernatural  element 
into  our  life  if  it  is  to  be  really  great.  If  we  are 
to  get  hold  of  more  man-power,  we  must  have  more 
than  the  power  that  is  found  in  humanitarianism, 
or  in  political  and  economic  enthusiasm,  or  in  the 
exploitation  of  personal  ability.  We  must  get 
some  of  the  divine  power  which  Paul  felt  when  he 
said :  "  I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ  which 
strengtheneth  me."  We  must  have  a  sense  of  debt 
that  piles  up  before  the  cross.  How  it  piles  up 
there! 

This  is  pre-eminently  the  Christian  motive.  It  is 
the  thing  that  must  drive  the  men  and  women  who 
are  to  save  the  world.  Nothing  else  will  do  it. 
Nothing  else  will  last  long  enough,  will  lift  high 
enough,  will  drive  hard  enough.    "  I  am  debtor." 

THE   nation's   motive 

In  a  peculiar  sense,  it  is  the  motive  which  is  driv- 
ing the  nation  to-day.  Why  is  America  at  war? 
What  has  taken  us  in  ?  Why  have  our  sons  enlisted  ? 
Why  are  the  people  of  this  nation  placing  life  and 
property  at  the  disposal  of  their  country?  America 
has  not  gone  to  war  for  anything  that  she  can  get 


PAUL'S  PORTRAIT  OF  HIMSELF       25 

out  of  it.  She  is  not  driven  by  a  lust  for  trade  and 
power.     She  is  not  after  territory  or  indemnity. 

It  is  the  old  motive.  We  are  debtors.  We  have 
something  the  world  needs.  It  is  not  our  wealth 
or  our  power.  It  is  our  freedom.  This  is  a  holy 
war  because  back  of  it  is  a  holy  motive.  The  mere 
fact  that  we  are  in  a  position  to  lend  a  hand  loads 
us  down  with  obligation. 

A  nation  with  such  a  motive  is  already  victorious, 
for  it  is  not  what  a  nation  does,  but  why  it  does  it. 
No  nation  that  lays  itself  on  the  altar  of  service 
makes  a  sacrifice  that  God  can  despise.  America 
will  come  out  of  this  war  with  a  glory  time  can 
never  dim. 

THE  church's   motive 

In  a  peculiar  and  pre-eminent  sense,  it  is  this 
motive  which  must  drive  the  Christian  church  in  its 
world  mission.  Paul  said :  "  As  much  as  in  me  is,  I 
am  ready  to  preach  the  gospel."  He  felt  that  the 
gospel  was  what  the  world  most  needed.  It  was 
the  best  thing  he  knew  anything  about,  and  he  felt 
that  his  supreme  obligation  was  to  proclaim  it. 

This  is  the  supreme  obligation  of  the  Christian 
church  in  America.  America  has  world  obligations 
which  she  can  neither  evade  nor  repudiate.  We  will 
never  meet  these  obligations  so  long  as  we  withhold 
from  other  nations  the  one  thing  that  has  made  us 
great,  and  by  every  test  and  measure  that  fair  and 
far-seeing  men  can  apply,  that  thing  is  Christianity. 
We  can  give  the  weaker  nations  opium,  and  they 
will  curse  us.    We  can  give  them  up-to-date  methods 


26       THE  MOTIVE  OF  A  GREAT  LIFE 

and  weapons  of  war,  and  they  may  destroy  us.  We 
can  give  them  the  tools  of  industry,  of  education, 
and  of  commerce,  and  they  may  undo  themselves. 
But  if  we  will  give  them  the  gospel,  it  will  save 
them.  It  will  make  them  great  and  happy  and 
useful. 

What  has  been  done  for  us  increases  our  debt. 
What  the  gospel  has  done  for  us  it  will  do  for  every 
other  nation.  The  success  of  the  gospel  in  non- 
Christian  lands  is  the  modem  miracle.  Wherever  it 
has  been  proclaimed,  it  has  proven  itself  to  be  "  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation." 

Should  the  church  repudiate  its  debt,  it  will  not 
only  discredit  itself,  but  it  will  soon  discover  that 
it  has  adopted  the  most  speedy  method  for  its  own 
decay.  The  only  thing  that  will  keep  the  church 
virile  and  sweet  is  to  be  everlastingly  paying  the  one 
debt  that  never  can  be  paid. 

When  Westminster  Abbey  was  filled  with  a  great 
throng  to  witness  the  coronation  of  King  George,  the 
archbishop  arose  and  announced  as  the  text  for  the 
sermon :  **  I  am  among  you  as  one  that  serveth." 
There  could  be  no  brighter  theme. 

An  official  from  Australia  as  he  went  from  one 
of  the  great  functions  of  that  coronation  late  one 
night  lost  his  way  and  found  himself  in  a  London 
alley.  There  on  a  doorstep  he  passed  a  lad  holding 
a  little  girl  on  his  knee,  and  the  lad  had  taken  off 
his  coat  and  wrapped  it  around  his  little  sister's 
body  to  protect  her  from  the  raw  cold.  This  was 
what  the  visitor  saw  in  the  heart  of  the  empire  at 
midnight.    It  was  the  realization  of  the  Westminster 


PAUL'S  PORTRAIT  OF  HIMSELF       27 

message.     It  is  what  makes  a  nation  great  whether 
it  be  enshrined  in  king  or  street  waif. 

The  motive  of  service  is  the  great  motive.  Let 
theologies  reconstrue  themselves  in  harmony  with 
this  motive,  and  they  will  cease  to  be  uninteresting. 
Let  creeds  get  this  driving  power  back  of  their  dog- 
mas, and  the  world  will  treat  them  with  a  new  re- 
spect. There  is  nothing  greater  for  either  God  or 
man  than  this — a  life  of  service.  Write  me  as  one 
that  serves. 


II 

THE  REMEDY  FOR  A  LOST  WORLD- 
PAUL'S  GOSPEL 


"  For  God  is  my  witness,  whom  I  serve  with  my  spirit  in 
the  gospel  of  his  Son,  that  without  ceasing  I  make  mention 
of  you  always  in  my  prayers." — Romans  i  :  9. 

"  For  I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  gospel  of  Christ :  for  it 
is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to  everyone  that  be- 
lieveth;  to  the  Jew  first,  and  also  to  the  Greek,  For 
therein  is  the  righteousness  of  God  revealed  from  faith  to 
faith:  as  it  is  written,  The  just  shall  live  by  faith." — Ro- 
mans 1 :  16,  17. 

"  In  the  day  when  God  shall  judge  the  secrets  of  men  by 
Jesus  Christ  according  to  my  gospel." — Romans  2 :  16. 


II 

THE  REMEDY  FOR  A  LOST  WORLD- 
PAULAS  GOSPEL. 

A  MAN  reveals  himself  in  what  he  writes.  A 
book  is  the  lengthened  shadow  of  a  human 
personality.  The  book  of  Romans  in  the  New 
Testament  is  a  revelation  of  the  inner  spiritual  ex- 
perience of  St.  Paul.  It  is  a  full  length  portrait  of 
the  great  apostle.  It  is  the  greatest  book  Paul  ever 
wrote. 

Its  theme  is  redemption,  personal  and  social,  indi- 
vidual and  national,  international  and  racial,  for  the 
Jew  and  the  Gentile,  for  the  Greek  and  the  Roman, 
for  the  wide  world  and  for  all  time.  It  is  a  great 
theme.  Never  did  writer  set  pen  to  paper  driven  by 
a  bigger  theme.  Never  did  thought  fight  for  utter- 
ance in  brain  or  on  lip  to  tell  a  more  enchanting 
story.  How  is  man  to  be  saved?  How  is  human 
nature  to  be  changed?  How  is  the  beast  in  man  to 
be  dethroned  and  the  angel  in  man  to  be  impris- 
oned? How  are  slavery  and  savagery  and  despo- 
tism, how  are  race  hatred  and  caste  and  supersti- 
tion and  all  that  brood  of  hell  that  has  broken  loose 
on  earth  to  be  rounded  up  and  destroyed?  How  is 
this  lost  world  to  be  brought  back  to  God?  This  is 
the  story  of  Paul's  greatest  book  written  to  the 
church  in  the  chief  city  of  the  ancient  world. 

81 


32     THE  REMEDY  FOR  A  LOST  WORLD 

Hi's  method  is  the  gospel.  He  says  he  has  no 
hope  of  either  personal  or  social  redemption,  of 
either  national  or  racial  salvation,  save  through  the 
gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  Here  on  the  opening  page 
of  his  greatest  book  he  flies  his  flag  and  proclaims 
his  creed.  His  announcement  rings  with  defiance. 
It  shouts  with  confidence.  It  soars  like  a  challenge. 
It  smites  like  a  summons  to  battle.  The  man  is 
aflame  with  his  theme.  He  is  what  he  says.  He  has 
cut  all  bridges  behind  him.  He  sees  but  one  road 
before  him.  He  wants  none  other.  It  is  long  enough 
and  strong  enough  and  straight  enough  and  safe 
enough  to  take  him  to  his  goal.  "  For,"  says  this 
man  who  feels  that  he  is  debtor  to  the  world,  *'  I 
am  not  ashamed  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  for  it  is  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation  to  everyone  that  be- 
lieveth,  to  the  Jew  first,  and  also  to  the  Greek." 

THE  AGE   IN   WHICH   PAUL  LIVED 

To  feel  the  full  force  of  what  he  says,  we  must 
group  about  this  statement  the  age  in  which  it  was 
uttered.  It  was  an  age  that  was  spiritually  bank- 
rupt. Heathenism  and  Judaism  were  both  decadent. 
Men  had  become  disgusted  with  the  polytheism  of 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  until  the  intelligent  people 
of  that  day  not  only  rejected  but  ridiculed  it. 
Skepticism  was  well-nigh  universal.  The  two-pre- 
eminent systems  of  philosophy,  the  Stoic  and  the 
Platonic,  were  discredited.  Stoicism  inculcated  blind 
resignation  to  unalterable  necessity,  and  doomed 
men  to  an  unconscious  hereafter.  Platonism  be- 
fogged the  common  mind  with  a  mythological  sys- 


PAUL'S  GOSPEL  33 

tern  that  was  incomprehensible,  and  promised  what 
it  could  not  accomplish,  and  created  hopes  it  could 
not  satisfy. 

The  situation  among  the  Jews  was  no  better. 
Their  religion  had  degenerated  into  a  dead  for- 
malism. Three  schools  promised,  but  not  one 
performed.  The  Pharisees  were  ritualists.  The 
Sadducees  were  skeptics.  The  Essenes  were  mystics. 
They  all  broke  down  before  the  evils  of  the  day. 
Not  one  of  them  had  a  restraint  strong  enough  to 
stay  the  tide  that  was  running  toward  ruin.  Not 
one  of  them  could  furnish  an  inspiration  splendid 
enough  to  make  men  hope. 

Into  this  world,  spiritually  bankrupt,  into  this  age 
of  despair,  into  this  state  of  society  whose  attitude 
toward  hfe  was  an  alloy  of  skepticism  and  super- 
stition, Paul  comes  with  the  gospel. 

He  was  qualified  to  act  before  such  a  situation. 
By  birth  a  Jew,  by  birthplace  a  Roman,  by  natural 
gifts  a  capable  leader,  by  education  one  of  the  fore- 
most scholars  of  his  day,  and  by  training,  travel, 
and  association  a  cosmopolitan,  Paul  was  fitted  for 
both  the  negative  and  positive  side  of  world  leader- 
ship. He  could  rout  the  Stoic  and  the  Platonist  on 
their  own  ground.  He  had  traversed  the  sterile 
paths  of  the  Pharisee  and  the  Sadducee  and  the 
Essene,  and  knew  that  they  led  nowhere.  He  was 
the  one  man  of  that  spiritually  bankrupt  age  with  an 
asset,  fitted  by  nature  and  experience  to  lead  the 
world,  if  only  he  can  find  the  road  that  leads  to 
life. 

And  now  he  declares  he  has  found  the  road.    He 


34     THE  REMEDY  FOR  A  LOST  WORLD 

discovered  it  that  day  on  the  way  to  Damascus  when 
a  voice  from  heaven  halted  him  in  his  bHnd  career 
of  bigotry  and  hate,  and  a  celestial  hand  touched 
his  sightless  soul  with  a  vision  of  the  truth.  There 
in  that  mystical  experience  of  his  conversion  he  met 
a  Savior,  and  found  and  felt  a  power  that  could 
redeem  the  world.  He  has  something  that  will  lift 
the  pall  of  despair  which  hangs  over  the  race,  some- 
thing which  will  slay  its  skepticism  and  superstition, 
which  will  lay  a  hand  of  restraint  on  its  animal  ex- 
cesses, and  rebuke  its  damning  follies,  and  star  with 
fadeless  and  immortal  hope  the  destiny  that  had 
gone  bankrupt.  It  is  the  gospel  of  Him  Who  was 
crucified  on  Calvary's  cross.  "  I  am  not  ashamed 
of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  for  it  is  the  power  of  God 
unto  salvation  to  everyone  that  believeth." 

In  the  remaining  portion  of  this  first  chapter,  he 
arraigns  the  Gentile  world  at  the  bar  of  its  own 
experience,  and  shows  how  it  has  gone  from  bad 
to  worse  in  the  effort  to  save  itself  by  its  works. 
Then  in  the  second  and  third  chapters,  he  turns  to 
his  own  people,  the  Jews,  and  convicts  them  of  a 
course  as  calamitous.  With  these  two  spectacles  of 
world  failure  to  find  redemption  in  any  of  the 
philosophies  or  systems  of  the  day  before  them,  he 
summons  men  with  increasing  confidence  to  the  cross 
of  Christ,  and  expounds  his  gospel. 

Paul's  confidence  in  the  gospel 

Without  a  fear,  he  flings  himself  out  on  his  age, 
in  the  confident  affirmation  that  the  gospel  will  save 
the  world.     He  stakes  everything  on  this  faith,  and 


PAUL'S  GOSPEL  35 

he  has  much  to  stake.  He  is  no  parvenu,  no  disin- 
herited adventurer,  no  cheap  religious  prompter; 
never  did  any  man  give  up  more  for  his  cause  than 
Paul  gave  up  when  he  espoused  the  gospel. 

He  sacrificed  nationalism.  He  became  an  outcast 
among  his  own  people.  Wherever  he  went,  he  found 
himself  branded.  The  Jews  hated  him.  They  felt 
that  he  was  disloyal,  apostate,  a  traitor.  To  the  Jew 
there  was  no  deeper  hell.  In  no  people  has  the 
spirit  of  nationalism  been  so  strongly  developed. 
What  persecutions  they  have  endured  rather  than  be 
disloyal  to  Israel!  You  can  read  the  story  in  the 
outrages  that  have  been  heaped  upon  them  for  cen- 
turies in  well-nigh  every  country  of  the  world.  You 
can  find  this  story  of  persecution  wherever  the  Jew 
has  gone.  It  was  hard  for  Paul  to  face  the  reproach 
of  turning  his  back  on  his  own  people.  He  did  face 
it.    He  sacrificed  nationaHsm. 

He  gave  up  his  professional  prospects.  He  was 
the  first  man  of  his  nation.  He  was  already  high 
in  influence  and  position,  the  coming  man  of  his 
country.  He  might  have  had  anything  the  people 
could  give  him  of  place  or  power,  or  honor,  fame, 
or  property.  But  he  turned  his  back  on  it  all,  and 
went  out  despised,  persecuted,  hated,  branded. 

He  surrendered  personal  ease  and  safety.  "  I 
have  called  thee  to  suffer,"  was  the  word  which  met 
him  on  the  threshold  of  his  work.  Bonds  and  im- 
prisonment awaited  him  wherever  he  went.  He  was 
a  wanderer  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Read  the 
recital  of  his  trials  and  hardships.  He  does  not 
write  as  one  who  complains,  but  rather  as  one  who 


36     THE  REMEDY  FOR  A  LOST  WORLD 

boasts.  He  is  not  cast  down.  He  is  elated.  See 
him  as  he  lifts  his  head  and  says :  *'  I  am  an  ambas- 
sador in  bonds.  All  things  are  mine.  What  things 
were  gain  to  me,  those  I  counted  lost  for  Christ." 
It  was  not  an  empty  boast.  Watch  him  as  he  makes 
good  his  boast.  Follow  him  from  city  to  city.  See 
them  as  they  stone  him  and  scourge  him  and  drag 
him  outside  the  town  and  fling  his  body  on  the  ash 
heap  and  leave  him  for  dead.  He  is  not  disturbed. 
See  him  in  shipwrecks  and  imprisonments.  He  is 
not  anxious.  He  has  a  great  conviction.  It  is  that 
this  gospel  for  which  he  suffers  the  loss  of  all  things 
is  worth  the  price. 

The  boldness  of  his  venture  is  enhanced  when  we 
consider  how  the  gospel  was  then  despised  and 
scorned.  A  cross  was  then  a  term  of  reproach.  It 
is  very  different  now.  Things  have  changed.  There 
are  centuries  of  vindication  on  the  side  of  the  gos- 
pel. There  are  eras  of  progress  and  campaigns  of 
victory.  The  foremost  nations  of  the  world  have 
espoused  the  gospel.  The  leaders  of  the  race  give 
their  homage  to  Christ.  It  requires  no  great  courage 
to  be  a  Christian  now,  but  the  tide  was  all  the  other 
way  then.  It  did  not  daunt  Paul.  Despite  all  it 
cost  him,  and  in  the  face  of  all  the  ridicule  and  re- 
proach with  which  a  scornful  and  skeptical  age 
greeted  the  cross,  he  says:  "  I  am  not  ashamed  of 
the  gospel." 

HIS  CONFIDENCE  NOT   MISPLACED 

Paul  made  no  mistake.  The  gospel  justified  his 
confidence  in  it.    As  he  went  up  and  down  the  earth 


PAUL'S  GOSPEL  37 

proclaiming  the  message,  the  people  stopped  to 
listen,  and  if  they  listened  long  enough,  they  threw 
away  their  old  gods,  and  knelt  at  that  blood-stained 
cross.  Wherever  he  preached  it,  the  gospel  flour- 
ished and  bore  fruit  In  wicked  cities  Christian 
churches  were  organized.  In  centers  of  caste  and 
hate  and  greed,  love  began  to  cast  its  spell.  Good 
will  started  to  climb  toward  the  throne.  The  beauty 
of  holiness  appeared.  The  ghastliness  and  ghoulish- 
ness  of  vice  and  sin  unmasked,  and  men  began  to 
say  to  each  other :  "  After  all  there  is  something 
worth  living  for." 

Individual  character  was  rehabilitated.  It  was 
seen  that  "  Christ  has  power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins." 
Hardened  consciences  were  made  tender.  Enfeebled 
wills  were  recharged  with  power.  Faith  took  the 
place  of  doubt,  hope  of  despair,  and  love  of  greed. 
The  gospel  began  to  do  what  the  systems  of  the 
Stoics  and  Platonists  had  been  powerless  to  do,  what 
the  ritualists  of  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  and 
Essenes  were  unable  to  accomplish.  It  began  to  re- 
create human  nature. 

Society  was  changed.  People  began  to  treat  each 
other  better.  Slavery  was  challenged.  It  was  a  long 
time  before  it  was  destroyed,  but  it  was  doomed  the 
day  it  was  challenged.  As  the  gospel  was  preached, 
men  began  to  say :  "  We  must  respect  the  image  of 
God  in  the  face  of  our  f ellowmen."  "  We  must  not 
treat  human  life  as  a  chattel.  We  are  brothers." 
"  We  must  bear  each  others'  burdens."  Loads  grew 
lighter,  and  the  day  brighter,  and  the  way  easier 


38     THE  REMEDY  FOR  A  LOST  WORLD 

for  the  tired  and  lonely  and  desolate  in  a  world  that 
had  all  but  ceased  to  hope. 

Governments  were  changed.  It  was  a  bad  day 
for  despots  when  the  gospel  began  to  be  preached. 
Slowly  but  surely  the  movement  got  under  way 
which  was  to  sound  the  doom  of  tyranny  and  abso- 
lutism. As  the  gospel  was  proclaimed,  the  worth 
of  the  individual  was  discovered,  and  with  his  worth, 
his  rights.  Might  ceased  to  be  a  synonym  of  right, 
and  force  was  discredited  as  a  method  of  civiliza- 
tion. Thrones  crumbled,  republics  sprang  up,  and 
there  was  an  open  door  and  a  place  in  the  sun  for 
the  world's  weakened  poor  wherever  the  gospel  was 
preached. 

And  the  gospel  has  spread.  The  marvel  of  its 
progress  is  the  wonder  of  the  world.  Its  numerical 
progress  is  nothing  short  of  a  miracle,  but  more  sig- 
nificant is  the  invisible  and  permeating  progress  of 
its  ideals.  It  is  like  leaven,  like  light.  Nothing  can 
stop  it.  No  power  on  earth  can  prevent  the  progress 
of  the  gospel.  As  well  try  to  chain  down  the  sun, 
to  lasso  the  stars,  to  halt  the  incoming  tide,  to  re- 
verse the  seasons,  to  dam  a  river. 

The  gospel  has  vindicated  Paul's  faith  in  it.  He 
was  big  enough  to  see  what  was  in  the  gospel  from 
the  start,  before  all  this  had  come  to  pass.  With- 
out a  fear  he  championed  the  cross,  and  proclaimed 
the  gospel  as  the  only  redemption  for  the  individual 
and  society.  If  he  could  say  then :  *'  I  am  not 
ashamed  of  the  gospel,"  how  much  more  could  he 
say  it  now?  If,  as  he  stood  back  there  amid  the 
ruin  of  society  and  the  despair  of  a  race  that  had 


PAUL'S  GOSPEL  39 

gone  on  the  rocks,  facing  a  colossal  task  and  lean- 
ing on  a  despised  and  condemned  crosSj  he  could 
say :  "  I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  gospel,"  with  what 
bounding  confidence  and  holy  enthusiasm  he  could 
say  the  same  to-day ! 

THE   HOPE  OF  THE   WORLD 

The  gospel  is  the  hope  of  the  world.  It  is  the  only 
hope.  It  is  the  all-sufficient  hope.  It  is  the  hope  of 
the  individual.  "  There  is  none  other  name  under 
heaven  given  among  men  whereby  we  must  be 
saved."  It  is  doing  its  work  before  our  eyes  to-day. 
It  has  lost  none  of  its  power.  We  do  not  need  to 
go  back  to  ancient  history.  One  might  believe  in 
Christ  for  what  He  did.  He  cannot  but  believe  in 
Him  for  what  He  does. 

It  is  the  hope  of  society.  Society  will  never  be 
saved  with  systems  of  philosophy  or  rituals  of  wor- 
ship or  political  and  economic  theories.  The  road 
is  strewn  with  the  failure  of  these  things.  There 
is  needed  more  than  law.  Legislation  is  not  so  much 
a  cause  as  it  is  an  effect.  Good  laws  are  a  by- 
product of  redemption.  Society  gets  better  laws  not 
to  save  people,  but  rather  because  people  have  been 
saved.  Society  must  be  saved  from  within.  What 
if  good  laws  are  enacted  and  people  remain  devilish  ? 
It  is  the  gospel  of  Christ  that  saves.  It  alone  has 
saving  power. 

It  is  the  hope  of  a  new  world.  Sometimes  we  al- 
most cease  to  hope  for  a  new  world.  Things  get  so 
bad  that  we  are  in  despair.  But  "  the  old  order 
changeth,  giving  place  to  new."     God  is  building  a 


40     THE  REMEDY  FOR  A  LOST  WORLD 

new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth 
righteousness.  The  new  age  is  coming,  the  age  of 
fraternity  and  peace,  of  security  and  brotherhood. 
It  is  coming  not  only  after,  but  during  the  war. 
Barriers  are  being  broken  down,  and  hoary  iniqui- 
ties are  losing  their  grip,  and  everything  good  is 
getting  a  firmer  footing  in  this  world. 

Paul's  creed  is  the  creed  for  the  times  and  world 
in  which  we  live.  The  gospel  was  never  more 
needed  than  right  now.  It  never  challenged  the 
situation  with  more  commanding  confidence.  I  am 
not  depressed  over  the  problems  and  disturbances  of 
our  day.  They  do  not  discredit  the  gospel.  They 
demand  it.  They  create  its  peerless  opportunity.  It 
alone  can  meet  the  issue. 

The  men  who  are  needed  for  these  times  are  men 
who  can  face  the  situation  as  Paul  did  that  dead 
age  in  which  he  dwelt.  The  rebuilders  of  society 
must  be  believers  in  the  gospel.  They  must  attack 
the  problems  of  the  age  with  unwavering  faith  in 
the  cross.  This  is  no  time  for  skepticism,  for  shal- 
low specifics,  for  the  empty  blatherings  of  new 
thought.  It  is  not  a  theory  the  world  needs  now. 
It  is  power,  and  a  lot  of  it.  It  is  power  enough  to 
drive  society  up  hill.  You  will  find  such  a  moral 
dynamo  in  the  gospel,  and  in  the  gospel  alone,  for 
the  gospel  is  not  the  power  of  men,  but  the  power 
of  God. 

The  men  who  face  the  future  with  this  dynamic 
of  redemption  must  be  those  who  have  experienced 
its  power  in  their  own  lives.  Paul  was  not  quoting 
from  the  pages  of  a  book  when  he  said :  "  I  am  not 


PAUL'S  GOSPEL  41 

ashamed  of  the  gospel."  He  was  writing  out  of  his 
heart.  He  had  dipped  his  pen  in  his  life  blood.  He 
knew  what  he  believed,  because  he  knew  Whom  he 
believed.  What  the  world  needs  to-day  is  a  man 
who  has  been  to  Calvary,  to  whom  the  cross  is  not 
a  decoration,  but  an  incarnation,  and  who  can  say: 
**  I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  gospel,  for  it  is  the  power 
of  God  in  my  own  life ! " 


Ill 

THE  ATONEMENT— PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF 
SALVATION 


"For  when  we  were  yet  without  strength,  in  due  time 
Christ  died  for  the  ungodly.  For  scarcely  for  a  righteous 
man  will  one  die:  yet  peradventure  for  a  good  man  some 
would  even  dare  to  die.  But  God  commendeth  his  love 
toward  us,  in  that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died 
for  us.  Much  more,  then,  being  now  justified  by  his 
blood,  we  shall  be  saved  from  wrath  through  him.  But 
if,  when  we  were  enemies,  we  were  reconciled  to  God  by 
the  death  of  his  Son;  much  more,  being  reconciled,  we 
shall  be  saved  by  his  life."— Romans  5  -  6-10. 


Ill 

THE  ATONEMENT— PAUUS  DOCTRINE  OF 
SALVATION 

THE  fifth  chapter  of  Romans  presents  Paul's 
doctrine  of  salvation.  The  historical  back- 
ground of  this  doctrine,  painted  out  of 
Paul's  experience  as  a  Jew,  is  given  in  the  fourth 
chapter.  The  theological  name  for  the  doctrine  is 
"  atonement."  It  is  Christianity's  crowning  doc- 
trine. Take  it  out,  and  the  gospel  is  hopelessly 
mutilated.  It  is  central,  essential,  fundamental, — 
so  much  so  that  as  long  as  one  holds  firmly  and 
Scripturally  to  the  atonement,  he  may  be  allowed 
large  liberty  in  other  things:  so  much  so  that  if  he 
should  cut  loose  from  the  atonement  he  will  find 
himself  hopelessly  adrift.  The  glorious  fact  with 
which  it  has  to  do  is  the  sheet-anchor  of  the  sin- 
ner's hope,  and  the  anchor  holds  in  every  storm. 
Some  years  ago  a  man  wonderfully  gifted  went  up 
and  down  the  land  preaching  to  great  crowds  and 
swaying  multitudes  with  the  spell  of  his  marvelous 
personality  and  matchless  gifts.  Discerning  people, 
however,  noticed  that  the  atonement  had  no  place 
in  his  preaching, — in  fact,  he  himself  later  announced 
his  rejection  of  it.  Soon  his  splendid  ministry  went 
into  eclipse.  Later  he  became  an  obscure  lecturer 
in  a  Western  town,  ministering  to  a  small  group 

45 


46  THE  ATONEMENT 

of  religious  faddists.  Later  still  he  recognized  his 
mistake  and  publicly  proclaimed  his  faith  in  a  gos- 
pel that  is  fatally  defective  without  the  atonement. 
No  man  can  hope  to  lead  others  out  of  the  dark  who 
begins  by  putting  out  his  own  light. 

The  atonement  is  Christ's  supreme  achievement. 
It  is  the  big  fact  in  His  personal  ministry  for  man's 
redemption.  It  sums  up  in  a  word  the  Savior's  sav- 
ing merit,  and  puts  Jesus  in  a  class  altogether  by 
Himself.  There  are  innumerable  religions.  Anyone 
who  cares  to  do  so  may  start  a  new  one.  But  there 
is  but  one  gospel,  for  there  is  but  one  religion  with 
a  Savior.  There  are  countless  religious  leaders  and 
teachers.  Anyone  may  adventure  that  role  who  can 
satisfy  himself  with  its  perquisites.  But  there  is 
but  one  religious  leader  and  teacher  who  is  a  Savior, 
for  there  is  but  one  who  has  made  atonement  and 
who  has  power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  atonement  is 
Christianity's  crowning  doctrine  and  Christ's  su- 
preme achievement,  it  has  been  assailed  as  has  per- 
haps no  other  feature  of  the  gospel. 

They  say  it  is  a  bloody  doctrine,  and  therefore 
repulsive  to  refined  sensibilities,  that  its  ethical 
features  belong  to  a  raw  age,  and  that  its  imagery 
shocks  culture.  Maybe  so,  but  sin,  with  which  the 
atonement  deals,  is  a  hideous  thing.  Sin  may  veil 
its  features,  but  the  veil  cannot  change  its  black 
heart.  Despite  all  our  progress  and  culture,  a  lie 
is  no  more  ethical  now  than  in  the  days  of  Ananias 
and  Sapphira.  Adultery  is  no  more  moral  in  the 
twentieth  century  than  when  David,  to  sate  his  lust. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION     47 

stained  his  hands  with  Uriah's  blood;  and  murder 
is  no  whiter  now  than  in  that  primal  hour  of  the 
world's  dawn  when  Cain  slew  his  brother  Abel.  Let 
us  not  become  too  snivelingly  sentimental.  Let  us 
not  smother  our  beliefs  with  perfumes.  The  atone- 
ment is  a  doctrine  of  sacrificial  blood,  but  when  we 
learn  the  efficacy  of  the  blood,  it  will  not  offend  us. 
It  will  enchant  us.  We  shall  not  shun  it.  We  shall 
sing  it. 

"There  is  a  fountain  filled  with  blood 
Drawn  from  Emmanuel's  veins, 
And  sinners  plunged  beneath  that  flood 
Lose  all  their  guilty  stains." 

Paul  must  have  felt  this  way,  or  he  would  never 
have  written  this  fifth  chapter  of  Romans,  especially 
that  part  of  it  in  which  he  says :  "  Much  more  then, 
being  now  justified  by  his  blood,  we  shall  be  saved 
from  wrath  through  him.  For  if,  when  we  were 
enemies,  we  were  reconciled  to  God  by  the  death 
of  his  Son,  much  more,  being  reconciled,  we  shall  be 
saved  by  his  life." 

They  say  that  the  idea  of  a  vicarious  sacrifice  is 
unreasonable,  that  it  is  a  fiction,  and  that  every  man 
must  answer  for  his  own  life.  So  he  must,  and  so 
he  does,  when  he  can,  but  when  he  cannot,  what 
then?  When  a  man  is  chained  in  a  dungeon,  it  is 
folly  to  tell  him  to  be  free.  What  he  needs  is  an 
emancipator.  Vicarious  suffering  is  not  unreason- 
able. It  is  one  of  the  commonest  facts  of  life.  All 
about  us  are  people  and  things  suffering  for  other 
people  and  things.  You  see  it  in  the  family,  where 
the  mother  suffers  for  her  child,  where  a  daughter 


48  THE  ATONEMENT 

sacrifices  her  young  life  for  her  invalid  mother. 
You  see  it  in  the  garden,  where  one  flower  withers 
that  others  may  bloom.  You  see  it  in  a  harvest  field. 
You  see  it  in  a  bird's  nest.  You  see  it  a  thousand 
times  a  day.  It  is  the  thing  which  saves  life  from 
savagery,  this  thing  which  says :  "  No,  you  are  not 
able.  Let  me  take  your  place."  You  are  seeing  it 
along  the  world's  battle  lines.  What  are  they  doing 
there,  if  they  are  not  laying  down  their  lives  for 
others?  You  do  not  have  to  explain  the  atonement 
to  them.  They  are  living  it.  And  after  this  war 
is  over,  to  the  men  who  have  been  in  the  trenches 
it  will  not  be  necessary  to  defend  this  fundamental 
doctrine  of  our  faith.  It  has  been  demonstrated  to 
them  in  a  glorious  experience. 

It  came  in  the  same  way  to  the  apostle  Paul.  He 
was  writing  out  of  his  life,  too,  when  he  said :  "  For 
scarcely  for  a  righteous  man  will  one  die:  yet  per- 
adventure  for  a  good  man  some  would  even  dare  to 
die.  But  God  commendeth  his  love  toward  us,  in 
that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us." 
But  the  divinest  manifestation  of  this  great  truth  of 
vicarious  sacrifice  is  in  the  atoning  sufferings  of 
Christ. 

They  say  we  have  the  teachings  of  Jesus,  what 
difference  does  it  make  what  we  believe  about  Him  ? 
Let  us  eliminate  all  vexatious  questions  about  the 
virgin  birth,  the  miracles  of  His  personal  ministry, 
the  atonement,  and  all  that  has  to  do  with  the  super- 
natural, and  confine  ourselves  to  His  teachings.  Are 
they  not  enough?  If  we  obey  them,  what  more  is 
needed  ?    Ah,  if  we  did  but  obey  them  I    "  Where- 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION     49 

fore,  as  by  one  man,  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and 
death  by  sin ;  and  so  death  passed  upon  all  men,  for 
that  all  have  sinned :  For  until  the  law  sin  was  in 
the  world :  but  sin  is  not  imputed  when  there  is  no 
law.  Nevertheless  death  reigned  from  Adam  to 
Moses,  even  over  them  that  had  not  sinned  after  the 
similitude  of  Adam's  transgression,  who  is  the 
figure  of  him  that  was  to  come." 

A  lad  who  sat  beside  his  father  at  a  prayer- 
meeting  heard  a  man  praying  most  earnestly  to  be 
good,  to  be  useful,  to  be  unselfish.  The  boy  leaned 
over  and  whispered  to  his  father :  "  Father,  why 
doesn't  he  ?  "  Why  do  not  we  obey  the  teachings 
of  Christ?  We  need  more  than  a  knowledge  of  His 
teachings.  We  need  the  ability  to  obey.  Christianity 
is  more  than  Christ's  teachings.  It  is  Christ.  His 
teachings  are  precious,  but  He  is  more  precious. 
Can  a  love-letter  ever  take  the  place  of  a  lover? 
Besides,  we  should  never  have  had  Christ's  teach- 
ings had  we  not  first  had  Christ,  and  had  not  Christ 
Himself  been  what  He  was  and  done  what  He  did. 

They  say,  why  go  further  than  the  example  of 
Christ?  We  know  how  He  lived.  He  shows  us 
how  to  live.  Is  it  not  enough  to  imitate  Him?  Yes, 
He  shows  us  how  to  live,  but  He  does  far  more. 
He  enables  us  to  live  after  the  fashion  of  His  life. 
To  do  that,  one  must  be  more  than  an  imitator. 
He  must  be  a  reproducer.  Life  is  the  only  thing  that 
can  reproduce.  It  is  idle  to  tell  a  thorn  bush  to  be 
an  oak  tree.  The  life  of  the  oak  must  jump  in  its 
sap  before  it  can  imitate  the  oak.  And  so  Jesus 
Himself  must  be  formed  in  us  if  we  are  to  imitate 


60  THE  ATONEMENT 

Him.  Therefore,  Jesus  is  not  only  our  example,  but 
our  Savior.  Recently  a  ship  in  peril  at  sea  sent  out 
the  wireless  cry,  "  Save,  O  save !  ",  and  a  dozen  great 
ocean  liners  came  speeding  to  its  side  to  give  relief. 
Suppose  these  big  steamships  had  contented  them- 
selves with  sailing  around  the  imperilled  vessel  and 
giving  it  an  exhibition  of  seamanship.  Suppose  they 
had,  in  effect,  said :  "  Watch  us  and  see  how  to 
handle  yourself  in  a  storm  at  sea.  Imitate  us.'* 
Their  conduct  would  not  have  been  the  heroism  of 
the  high  seas,  but  the  infamy.  Yet  this  is  as  far 
as  some  people  get  with  Christ.  If  Jesus  does  noth- 
ing for  us  but  set  an  example,  He  is  not  our  Savior. 
He  is  our  despair. 

The  biggest  fact  of  Christianity  is  Christ,— not 
the  church,  not  the  Bible,  not  civilization,  not  the 
Christian,  but  Christ.  Christ  proves  the  Bible.  He 
vindicates  the  church.  He  inspires  civilization,  and 
produces  the  Christian.  I  believe  in  the  Bible  be- 
cause I  believe  in  Christ.  I  have  confidence  in  the 
church  because  I  believe  in  Christ.  I  look  for  new 
heavens  and  a  new  earth  because  I  believe  in  Christ. 
The  biggest  fact  in  Christianity  is  Christ,  and  the 
biggest  fact  in  Christ  is  the  atonement.  He  is  the 
atonement.  The  atonement  is  His  personal  ministry 
for  man's  redemption.  "  And  not  only  so,  but  we 
also  joy  in  God  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by 
whom  we  have  now  received  the  atonement." 

THE  BACKGROUND  OF  THE  ATONEMENT 

In  order  to  approach  the  atonement  sympathet- 
ically, let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  background 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION     51 

set  up  for  us  in  the  ceremonial  worship  of  the  Old 
Testament,  particularly  in  the  customs  incident  to 
the  observance  of  that  greatest  day  in  the  Hebrew 
year,  the  Day  of  the  Atonement.  As  a  Jew  all  this 
was  ingrained  into  Paul's  experience.  All  the  rites 
and  ordinances  of  Jewish  worship  incline  toward  the 
great  truth  central  in  the  observance  of  that  day.  It 
was  my  privilege  a  few  years  ago  to  be  present  for 
several  hours  in  a  Russian-Jewish  synagogue  of  the 
most  orthodox  type,  and  witness  their  celebration  of 
the  Day  of  the  Atonement.  While  much  of  what  I 
saw  seemed  to  me  to  be  mere  formalism,  I  noticed 
that  the  emphasis  was  still  the  ancient  emphasis  on 
a  vicarious  propitiation  for  sin,  and  renewed  recon- 
ciliation between  God  and  man. 

The  ancient  observance  was  with  great  ceremony 
and  impressiveness.  From  all  over  the  land  the  peo- 
ple assembled.  At  the  supreme  moment  of  the 
service,  when  a  holy  hush  as  of  the  eternal  world 
fell  on  the  vast  concourse,  the  high  priest,  who  had 
already  offered  sacrifice  for  his  own  sins,  ap- 
proached that  mystic  inner  shrine  which  he  alone 
was  allowed  to  enter,  and  he  but  once  a  year.  Pass- 
ing through  the  heavy  curtains,  he  disappeared 
within  the  holy  of  holies,  and  was  there  face  to  face 
with  the  sacred  symbols  of  the  Divine  Presence. 
When  he  emerged  from  that  sublime  contact,  he 
took  two  sacrificial  goats  and  laid  on  them  the  sins 
of  the  people.  One  was  slain  and  offered  on  the 
altar.  The  other  was  taken  far  off  into  the  wilder- 
ness and  lost.  The  twofold  act  typified  expiation 
and  forgiveness. 


52  THE  ATONEMENT 

This  is  the  picture  which  is  hung  up  in  the  Old 
Testament  as  a  background  of  the  atonement.  It  is 
an  ancient  tapestry  into  which  inspiration  has  woven 
the  symbolism  of  Christ's  work  on  the  cross.  The 
day  of  atonement  was  a  shadow  picture  of  Christ's 
work,  and  the  great  truths  pictorially  presented 
there,  Christ  realized.  He  has  opened  up  the  holy 
of  holies,  so  that  any  soul  at  any  time  may  go 
straight  to  God.  He  has  also  suffered  for  sin  and 
achieved  forgiveness.  This  is  the  picture  which  was 
hanging  in  Paul's  experience  as  he  wrote:  "There- 
fore being  justified  by  faith,  we  have  peace  with 
God  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ:  by  whom  also, 
we  have  access  by  faith  into  this  grace  wherein  we 
stand,  and  rejoice  in  hope  of  the  glory  of  God. 
Therefore,  as  by  the  offense  of  one  judgment  came 
upon  all  men  to  condemnation,  even  so  by  the 
righteousness  of  one  the  free  gift  came  upon  all  men 
unto  justification  of  life.  For  as  by  one  man's  dis- 
obedience many  were  made  sinners,  so  by  the  obedi- 
ence of  one  shall  many  be  made  righteous.'* 

THE  ATONEMENT  ALL-INCLUSIVE 

Christ's  atoning  work  covers  His  entire  career, 
and  includes  every  fact  of  His  life  and  ministry. 
We  are  disposed  to  confine  it  to  His  death.  Un- 
doubtedly He  was  atoning  for  us  in  His  death.  This 
is  the  meaning  of  Calvary.  Calvary  was  vastly 
more  than  a  spectacle  of  heroism.  It  was  not  the 
death  of  a  victim,  but  the  achievement  of  a  Savior. 
It  was  the  goal  of  Christ's  earthly  ministry.  He 
died  for  sinners,  but  this  is  not  all  He  did. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION     53 

He  lived  for  sinners,  and  His  life  was  a  part  of 
His  atoning  work.  We  must  get  rid  of  our  narrow 
theories  of  the  atonement.  No  theory  is  big  enough 
to  hold  that  great  fact.  The  Incarnation  was  a  part 
of  the  atonement.  Christ  was  making  atonement 
when  He  taught,  when  He  stilled  the  tempest,  when 
He  fed  the  multitude,  when  He  healed  the  sick, 
when  He  had  compassion  on  the  crowd,  when  He 
wept  with  Mary  and  Martha,  when  He  raised  the 
dead,  when  He  lay  in  the  tomb  and  Himself  arose. 
Through  every  thought  and  deed  and  word  and  plan 
and  purpose  and  feature  of  His  life.  He  was  bring- 
ing God  and  man  together. 

Indeed,  the  atonement  is  timeless.  Christ  is  the 
"  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world." 
His  atoning  work  is  the  one  thing  Jesus  has  always 
been  about.  Widen  your  perspective.  Get  a  vision 
of  God's  great  plan.  The  atonement  was  a  fact  be- 
fore ever  sin  was  a  reality.  We  are  not  to  think  of 
God  as  having  blundered  at  creation,  and  as  trying 
to  recover  Himself  at  Calvary.  As  you  approach 
the  country  where  the  big  mountains  live,  suddenly 
you  discover  that  the  skyline  is  broken,  and  yonder, 
thirty  miles  away,  a  splendid  range  lifts  itself 
against  the  blue,  and  you  exclaim :  "  Behold  the 
mountains !  "  But  what  you  see  is  just  a  foothill. 
Beyond,  buried  in  the  haze  and  banked  against  the 
far  invisible  horizon,  rise  range  on  range  and  peak 
on  peak.  There  are  lofty  valleys  and  broad  plateaus 
and  dizzy  heights  which  stretch  and  slope  away 
toward  the  infinite.  Not  your  foothill,  but  that 
great  country  of  high  heights  and  far  ranges  is  the 


64  THE  ATONEMENT 

mountains.  So  we  sometimes  sit  down  before  Cal- 
vary and  say :  "  This  is  the  atonement."  It  is  just 
a  foothill  that  has  emerged.  All  of  Christ's  earthly 
ministry  banked  around  that  cross.  All  His  teach- 
ings, His  miracles,  His  example,  were  there.  But 
this  is  not  all.  Behind  and  beyond  and  above  Cal- 
vary stretch  the  infinite  features  of  the  atonement, 
obscured  by  distance  but  not  destroyed.  We  do  not 
see  them  now,  but  some  day  we  may,  and  then  we 
shall  begin  to  understand  the  meaning  of  the  Scrip- 
ture which  says :  "  He  was  the  Lamb  slain  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world."  Then  there  will  dawn  on 
us  the  far  meaning  of  Christ's  cry  on  the  cross :  "  It 
is  finished !  " 

Whether  or  not  we  take  in  the  far  reaches  of  the 
atonement,  we  must  be  convinced  that  blessings  ac- 
complished on  such  a  far  plan  and  by  such  measure- 
less sacrifice  are  the  most  precious  God  has  to 
bestow. 

THE  BENEFITS  OF  THE  ATONEMENT 

Insofar  as  we  are  able  to  apprehend  them,  the 
benefits  of  the  atonement  may  be  named  in  two 
words. 

The  first  is  expiation,  or  propitiation,  or  satisfac- 
tion. We  may  regard  this  as  the  divine  side  in  the 
application  of  the  atonement.  I  am  free  to  say 
there  are  features  connected  with  it  which  puzzle 
me,  but  I  accept  it  because  it  is  undoubtedly  taught 
in  the  Bible.  It  is  there  in  the  divine  economy  of 
grace.  It  is  the  aspect  of  the  atonement  that  seems 
to  be  given  most  prominence  in  the  Old  Testament. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION     55 

Christ  paid  our  debt.  He  suffered  in  our  stead.  He 
was  wounded  for  our  transgressions  and  bruised  for 
our  iniquities.  He  took  upon  Him  our  sins,  and 
suffered  the  just  for  the  unjust.  He  suffered  in  the 
sinner's  stead,  and  because  of  His  expiatory  work, 
God  can  be  just  and  at  the  same  time  justify  the 
unjust.  "  But  not  as  the  offense,  so  also  is  the  free 
gift:  for  if  through  the  offense  of  one  many  be 
dead,  much  more  the  grace  of  God,  and  the  gift  by 
grace,  which  is  by  one  man,  Jesus  Christ,  hath 
abounded  unto  many.  And  not  as  it  was  by  one 
that  sinned,  so  is  the  gift:  for  the  judgment  was  by 
one  to  condemnation,  but  the  free  gift  is  of  many 
offenses  unto  justification.  For  if  by  one  man's 
offense,  death  reigned  by  one;  much  more  they 
which  receive  abundance  of  grace  and  of  the  gift  of 
righteousness  shall  reign  ^  in  life  by  one,  Jesus 
Christ." 

This  is  the  gospel  for  the  sinner,  for  a  soul  at  the 
great  straits.  Leave  this  out,  and  there  is  no  gospel 
left.  We  ministers  are  frequently  sent  for  to  com- 
fort some  soul  with  a  wicked,  wretched,  wasted 
past,  and  for  whom  the  light  is  dying  fast  in  the 
west.  What  shall  we  say  at  such  a  time  ?  Shall  we 
proclaim  the  beatitudes,  and  preach  the  beauty  and 
worth  of  a  life  of  high  ideals  and  unselfish  service? 
There  is  no  gospel  in  that  for  a  man  who  is  dying, 
and  whose  past  has  been  wasted.  I  remember  once 
I  was  called  to  see  a  Scotchman  who  was  dying  of 
tuberculosis.  Climbing  a  filthy,  quaking  stair  to  a 
hall  bedroom  on  the  second  floor,  I  entered  a  room 
in   which   I   felt  you   could   almost   cut  tubercular 


66  THE  ATONEMENT 

germs  with  a  knife.  The  room  was  in  a  most  un- 
sanitary condition,  and  on  a  cot  lay  a  man  with  an 
awful  cough,  with  sunken  cheeks  and  hollow  eyes,  in 
the  last  stages  of  consumption.  He  told  me  that  he 
had  run  away  from  home  when  a  boy,  and  that, 
although  his  old  parents  in  Scotland  had  been  pious 
people,  he  had  lived  a  wild  and  reckless  life.  He 
said  he  wanted  me  to  help  him  get  home.  Suppos- 
ing that  he  wanted  to  get  back  to  Scotland,  I  asked 
him  if  he  was  a  member  of  the  St.  Andrew's  Society, 
and  how  much  money  he  would  need.  He  then  told 
me  that  I  did  not  understand  him, — that  what  he 
wanted  was  for  me  to  show  him  how  to  get  saved. 
Then  I  realized  that  he  was  talking  about  his  "  long 
home."  What  was  I  to  say  to  him?  He  had  lived 
a  wicked  life,  and  he  was  dying.  Should  I  talk  to 
him  about  Christ  as  an  example?  Should  I  try  to 
expound  to  him  the  ethics  of  Jesus  ?  I  told  him  the 
old  story  of  a  Savior  Who  died  for  sinners.  Who 
paid  the  penalty  on  Calvary's  cross.  And  I  saw  the 
fear  fade  out  of  his  face,  and  the  look  of  peace  come 
into  his  eyes,  and  I  heard  him  say  he  was  happy.  I 
went  out  of  that  shabby  tenement  walking  on  air, 
for  I  had  seen  once  more  the  greatest  of  all  miracles 
come  to  pass.  I  had  seen  a  soul  saved  by  the  aton- 
ing merit  of  a  crucified  Redeemer. 

The  second  word  is  reconciliation.  It  is  an  inci- 
dent of  the  first.  The  atonement  becomes  recon- 
ciliation because  it  is  expiation.  Reconciliation  is 
the  human  side  of  the  atonement,  if  we  may  say  the 
atonement  has  a  human  side.  It  is  that  aspect  of 
the  atonement  to  which  the  New  Testament  gives 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION      57 

prominence.  It  is  the  way  the  New  Testament 
translates  atonement, — "  through  whom  we  have  now 
received  the  reconciliation." 

Who  is  to  be  reconciled?  Not  God,  for  He  has 
never  been  alienated.  The  atonement  is  not  a 
scheme  to  make  God  love  us,  to  secure  His  friend- 
ship, to  capture  His  esteem.  Sometimes  it  is  so  re- 
garded, but  it  is  not  the  view  of  the  atonement 
which  comes  to  us  out  of  Paul's  experience.  "  For 
if,  when  we  were  enemies,  we  were  reconciled  to 
God  by  the  death  of  His  Son;  much  more,  being 
reconciled,  we  shall  be  saved  by  his  life."  The 
notion  that  God  is  a  fierce,  enraged,  vindictive  Deity, 
and  that  Christ  died  on  the  cross  to  tame  His 
savage  moods  and  allay  His  animosities  toward  the 
sinner  is  a  hideous  slander  of  the  atonement.  It  is 
pagan  rather  than  Christian.  God  has  never  needed 
to  be  reconciled  to  the  sinner,  for  He  has  never  been 
alienated. 

He  has  Himself  instituted  reconciliation  proceed- 
ings. "  God  so  loved  the  world  as  to  give  His  only 
begotten  Son."  "  But  God  commendeth  His  love 
toward  us,  in  that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ 
died  for  us."  God's  love  is  not  the  product,  but  the 
cause,  of  the  atonement.  It  is  not  sequence,  but 
motive.  And  God's  love  is  changeless.  Nothing  the 
sinner  can  do  can  make  God  stop  loving  Him.  God 
is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever.  He  is 
eternal,  timeless,  changeless  love.  The  Bible  will  be 
searched  in  vain  for  any  satisfactory  support  of  the 
theory  that  the  atonement  is  a  scheme  to  solace  the 
wrath  of  an  angry  God.    On  the  other  hand,  there 


58  THE  ATONEMENT 

is  abundant  Scripture  to  show  that  the  atonement 
was  an  effort  on  God's  part  to  reconcile  man  to  God. 
"  For  if,  when  we  were  enemies,  we  were  reconciled 
to  God  by  the  death  of  His  Son," — notice  it  does 
not  say :  "  For  if,  when  God  was  our  enemy,  God 
was  reconciled  to  us  by  the  death  of  His  Son."  Did 
the  Bible  read  that  way,  it  would  contradict  itself. 
"  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto 
Himself," — not  "  Himself  unto  the  world  " — and 
''you  that  were  sometime  alienated  and  enemies  in 
your  mind  by  wicked  works,  yet  now  hath  He  rec- 
onciled in  the  body  of  His  flesh  through  death." 
It  was  not  God  Who  was  alienated,  but  the  sinner. 

The  atonement  is  God's  supreme  effort  to  recon- 
cile His  alienated,  wayward,  and  estranged  children 
to  Himself,  to  make  them  see  that  He  is  not  an  angry 
and  vindictive  despot,  but  a  tender,  loving,  and 
compassionate  Father.  How  is  this  reconciliation 
to  be  effected?  Christ  the  Son  stands  up  in  the 
eternal  council  and  says :  "  I  will  undertake  to  effect 
reconciliation,"  and  so  this  becomes  His  mission 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world,  and  in  its  accom- 
plishment through  the  long  ages  He  climbed  to  His 
vicarious  sacrifice.  In  the  tragedy  of  Christ's  suf- 
ferings, there  are  three  acts  in  which  He  discovers 
to  man  the  heart  of  God. 

He  identifies  Himself  with  us.  "  Wherefore  in 
all  things  it  behooved  Him  to  be  made  like  unto  His 
brethren,  that  He  might  be  a  merciful  and  faithful 
high  priest  in  things  pertaining  to  God,  to  make 
reconciliation  for  the  sins  of  the  people.  For  in  that 
He  Himself  hath  suffered,  being  tempted.  He  is  able 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION     69 

to  succor  them  that  are  tempted."  Common  trials 
and  sufferings  are  the  furnace  fires  which  weld  life. 
Christ  meets  us  in  those  flames.  His  temptation  was 
real.  His  sufferings  were  real.  If  not,  they  were 
wicked.  We  emerge  from  the  fire  with  Him,  as 
our  brother,  ready  for  any  message  He  may  give 
us.  This  is  His  message.  "  He  that  hath  seen  me 
hath  seen  the  Father." 

Next,  He  breaks  the  power  and  fascination  of  sin 
through  suffering.  Sin  deceives  us.  Christ  tears 
off  sin's  disguises,  and  shows  us  that  sin  is  death. 
He  takes  the  penalty  up  in  His  own  life,  and  en- 
dures it.  He  agonizes  in  Gethsemane,  and  hangs  in 
crucifixion  and  shame  on  a  cross.  Thus  He  saves  us, 
not  only  from  sin,  but  from  sinning.  The  terrible 
thing  about  sin  is  not  the  suffering  incident  to  it, 
but  the  fact  of  sin.  The  pain  connected  with  disease 
is  merely  the  danger  signal  which  Nature  gives  that 
an  enemy  has  assailed  our  health.  Were  there  no 
pain  connected  with  disease,  it  could  do  its  deadly 
work  undiscovered.  And  so  the  suffering  incident 
to  sin  is  merely  a  danger  signal  to  show  that  an 
enemy  has  assailed  the  spiritual  life.  The  worst 
thing  about  sin  is  sinning.  Sinning  is  alienation 
from  God.  Christ  breaks  the  power  of  sin,  and  by 
that  act  effects  reconciliation.  "  That  as  sin  hath 
reigned  unto  death,  even  so  might  grace  reign 
through  righteousness  unto  eternal  life  by  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord." 

Finally,  He  reveals  God's  love  by  suffering. 
"  God  commendeth  His  own  love  toward  us  in  that 
while   we  were  yet   sinners,   Christ  died   for  us." 


60  THE  ATONEMENT 

This  is  where  the  blood  of  the  atonement  delivers 
its  message.  The  life  is  in  the  blood.  The  atone- 
ment is  the  story  of  One  going  the  full  length  of 
sacrificing  His  life  for  an  enemy.  When  we  under- 
stand that,  it  is  not  possible  for  us  longer  to  think 
of  God  as  hostile.  He  must  love  us.  He  suffers 
with  us.  I  once  knew  a  mother  whose  wayward  boy 
was  about  to  be  sent  to  jail  for  some  crime  he  had 
committed.  The  boy  did  not  seem  to  mind  the  dis- 
grace, but  the  mother  was  in  an  agony  of  pain.  She 
suffered  far  more  than  the  boy.  It  was  the  vicari- 
ous suffering  of  a  mother's  love.  It  is  this  love 
which  Christ  reveals  through  His  sufferings.  And 
so  by  His  cross  He  has  slain  the  enmity, — ^not  God's 
enmity  toward  us,  for  there  was  no  such  enmity  to 
slay, — but  our  enmity  toward  God. 

Thus  Christ,  through  suffering,  reconciles  us  to 
God.  With  nail-pierced  hands  He  tears  aside  the 
disguises  human  fear  had  built  between  itself  and 
God,  and  as  we  catch  the  vision  thus  revealed,  the 
spirit  in  our  hearts  cries :  "  Abba  Father !  "  At  last 
we  know  that  God  is  love.  We  lay  down  our  arms 
against  Him  and  surrender.  We  enlist  in  His 
service,  and  are  saved. 

THE   MATHEMATICS  OF  THE   ATONEMENT 

Someone  may  raise  a  question  as  to  the  mathe- 
matics of  the  atonement.  He  may  ask:  For  what 
number  and  for  what  class  did  Christ  die?  Is  the 
atonement  limited  or  unlimited?  Is  it  sufficient  for 
all,  but  efficient  only  for  the  elect?  Such  people 
are  getting  into  the  dogma  of  the  atonement,  and 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION      61 

dogma  may  not  always  be  a  blessing.  Sometimes  it 
may  mean  the  eclipse  of  religion.  It  is  certainly  not 
always  identical  with  religion.  Dogmatic  theology  is 
the  science  of  religion.  Salvation  is  the  experience 
of  xeligion.  Science  is  a  thing  that  needs  constant 
revision,  but  experience  is  timeless  and  permanent. 
Botany  is  the  science  of  flowers.  There  have  been 
many  schools  of  botany,  but  each  recurring  spring 
"  the  flowers  lift  up  the  same  fair  faces ;  the  violets 
are  here.'*  The  Bible  takes  up  the  mathematics  of 
the  atonement  in  a  grand  way.  It  says :  *'  God  so 
loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten 
Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not 
perish,  but  have  everlasting  life."  There  is  not  a 
bottom  to  that, — no  top,  no  rim,  no  end.  It  is 
measureless. 

Our  great  concern  connected  with  the  atonement 
should  be,  not  on  whom  it  is  bestowed,  but  by  whom 
it  is  received.  *'  Through  whom  we  have  now  re- 
ceived the  atonement."  Have  I  received  the  atone- 
ment? Have  I  laid  down  my  arms  against  God? 
Have  I  ceased  to  be  an  outlaw  and  become  a  citi- 
zen,— a  prisoner,  and  become  a  child?  Am  I  recon- 
ciled to  God?  Have  I  looked  over  the  shoulder  of 
the  cross  and  seen  my  Father's  face? 


IV 

THE  TROUBLE  WITH  THE  WORLD- 
PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 


"What  shall  we  say  then?  Shall  we  continue  in  sin, 
that  grace  may  abound?" — Romans  6:i. 

"  For  he  that  is  dead  is  freed  from  sin." — Romans  6 :  7. 

"  Let  not  sin  therefore  reign  in  your  mortal  body,  that 
ye  should  obey  it  in  the  lusts  thereof." — Romans  6 :  12. 

"  I  find  then  a  law,  that,  when  I  would  do  good,  evil  is 
present  with  me.  For  I  dehght  in  the  law  of  God  after 
the  inward  man:  But  I  see  another  law  in  my  members, 
warring  against  the  law  of  my  mind,  and  bringing  me  into 
captivity  to  the  law  of  sin  which  is  in  my  members.  O, 
wretched  man  that  I  am!  Who  shall  deliver  me  from  the 
body  of  this  death?  I  thank  God  through  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord.  So  then  with  the  mind  I  myself  serve  the  law  of 
God ;  but  with  the  flesh  the  law  of  sin." — Romans  7 :  21-25. 


IV 

THE  TROUBLE  WITH  THE  WORLD- 
PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

IN  the  sixth  and  seventh  chapters  of  the  Book 
of  Romans,  Paul  discusses  the  darkest  fact  in 
human  experience — sin.  Notice  his  approach 
to  the  subject.  He  begins  with  a  question :  "  Shall 
we  continue  in  sin  ?  " 

He  seems  to  say :  "I  do  not  understand  every- 
thing about  this  dark  problem."  Who  does?  How 
did  sin  ever  enter  God's  world?  Why  did  God  per- 
mit it  to  enter?  Why  was  He  not  there  to  bar  the 
door?  How  could  it  enter  if  God  be  sovereign? 
Why  does  sin  continue  after  it  has  been  sentenced? 
How  can  it  find  a  soil  in  which  to  grow  and  free- 
dom with  which  to  range?  How  can  man  ever  get 
his  consent  to  commit  sin?  What  is  sin's  destiny? 
What  pit  of  ruin  and  despair  is  it  to  dig  somewhere 
in  God's  world  before  it  is  finally  conquered  and 
cast  out?  All  these  and  other  matters  connected 
with  sin,  Paul  does  not  attempt  to  answer.  He  is 
no  dogmatist.  He  is  just  a  seeker  after  truth  and 
a  searcher  after  life.  And  so  he  begins  his  approach 
to  the  darkest  fact  in  human  experience  with  the 
question :  "  Shall  we  continue  in  sin  ?  " 

He  seems  also  to  say  that  he  wants  us  to  think 
about  it  ourselves.     He  does  not  want  us  to  dog- 

65 


66     THE  TROUBLE  WITll  THE  WORLD 

matize,  but  to  ponder,  to  reflect  and  meditate.  Paul 
does  not  attempt  to  think  for  other  people.  He  had 
his  own  convictions,  and  they  were  strong,  but  he 
did  not  attempt  to  impose  his  views  on  others.  He 
wants  people  to  reach  conclusions,  not  because  they 
are  told  that  certain  things  are  so,  but  because  by 
their  own  reasoning  and  experience  they  have  found 
them  so.  This  is  the  fundamental  position  of  Prot- 
estantism in  its  attitude  to  every  religious  question. 
The  church  is  not  your  conscience.  No  institution 
nor  priestly  hierarchy  can  take  the  place  of  the  indi- 
vidual will.  Therefore  Paul  starts  his  discussion  of 
sin  with  an  invitation  to  his  audience  to  think  for 
themselves. 

He  approaches  the  problem  only  after  he  has  sug- 
gested a  solution.  In  the  fifth  chapter  of  Romans, 
we  have  the  cure  for  sin.  It  is  the  atonement.  That 
chapter  starts  with  the  statement :  "  Therefore  being 
justified  by  faith,  we  have  peace  with  God  through 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  and  closes  with  the  state- 
ment :  "  As  sin  hath  reigned  unto  death,  even  so 
might  grace  reign  through  righteousness  unto  eternal 
life  by  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord."  He  takes  us  first 
to  the  cross  to  let  us  look  on  the  face  of  the  Re- 
deemer, and  to  the  fall  to  let  us  look  on  the  face  of 
sin.  If  there  is  a  remedy,  we  need  not  be  frightened 
by  the  disease.  If  sin  can  be  conquered  and  cured, 
we  can  face  it  without  a  panic  and  discuss  it  with- 
out a  fear.  If  our  worst  foe  is  doomed,  we  can 
smile  at  his  threats  and  attack  him  with  confidence. 
Since  we  have  peace  with  God  through  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  by  Whom  we  have  received  the  atone- 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN  67 

ment,  we  can  with  quiet  faith  approach  the  spec- 
tacle of  a  sin-sick,  sin-cursed,  sin-ruined  world. 

SIN   A  REALITY 

Paul  assumes  that  sin  is  a  reality.  He  has  found 
it  so  in  his  own  experience.  He  is  not  discussing 
a  myth.  He  is  not  treating  an  evil  that  exists  only 
in  his  imagination.  He  is  not  asking  a  question 
about  a  thing  for  whose  existence  he  has  only 
hearsay.  He  assumes  that  sin  is  a  fact  that  not  only 
cannot  be  denied,  but  that  is  so  widespread  and  con- 
spicuous, so  insidious  and  insistent,  so  unmistakable 
and  unescapable,  that  no  one  will  be  bold  enough 
even  to  call  the  fact  in  question. 

He  had  not  reckoned  with  certain  theologians  of 
a  twentieth  century  school,  with  whom  it  is  quite 
the  fashion  to  reduce  sin  to  a  shadow.  Men  are 
saying  to-day  that  the  doctrine  of  sin  is  a  lie,  an 
insult  to  intelligence,  a  challenge  to  decency  and 
culture.  People  do  not  sin.  They  simply  make  mis- 
takes. They  are  the  victims  of  circumstances.  Peo- 
ple do  not  intentionally  and  knowingly  and  on  pur- 
pose do  wrong.  This  is  the  rosewater  that  drips 
from  the  twentieth  century  sprinkling-pot  on  the 
pallid  plants  in  the  sterile  garden  of  the  new  the- 
ology.   We  cannot  get  far  with  such  an  equipment. 

"  In  vain  we  call  old  notions  fudge, 

And  bend  our  conscience  to  our  dealing; 
The  Ten  Commandments  will  not  budge. 
And  stealing  still  continues  stealing." 

Paul  assumes  that  sin  is  a  fact,  which  no  sen- 
sible person  will  deny.     Man  is  not  a  victim.     He 


68  THE  TROUBLE  WITH  THE  WORLD 

is  a  sinner.  When  a  man  does  wrong,  he  does  it 
not  because  he  cannot  help  himself,  but  because  he 
wants  to  do  it.  When  he  violates  God's  law,  it  is 
not  because  he  is  a  creature  of  circumstances,  but  of 
evil  inclinations.  When  he  misses  the  mark  and 
wallows  in  vice  and  rots  in  crime,  it  is  not  because 
there  are  no  clean  fields  in  which  to  wander,  but 
because  he  deliberately  prefers  the  sty. 

Paul's  vocabulary  is  not  starred  with  such  words 
as  "environment"  and  "heredity."  He  uses  a 
shorter  and  a  stouter  and  a  plainer  word.  He 
names  a  fact  which  locates  itself  not  so  much  in 
circumstances  and  surroundings  as  personaHty,  and 
where  cure  is  to  be  found  not  in  changing  man's 
condition,  not  in  abolishing  poverty,  not  in  giving 
man  a  new  set  of  ancestors,  but  in  taking  him  to 
Calvary,  where  he  gets  a  new  nature. 

SIN   RUINS  THE  WORLD 

Sin  is  responsible  for  the  ruin  of  the  world.  It 
is  the  fact  which  reaches  its  fruition  in  death.  It 
is  the  destructive  force  in  personality.  The  trouble 
with  people  is  not  that  they  are  poor  or  stupid  or 
friendless,  but  that  they  are  sinful.  Sin  makes  us 
unhappy.  It  brings  down  on  us  a  tragic  hour.  It 
is  responsible  for  suffering  and  sorrow,  for  disap- 
pointment and  failure.  If  people  would  only  do 
right!  Sin  wrecked  the  first  Eden,  and  it  has  been 
wrecking  Edens  ever  since.  Paradise  failed  not  be- 
cause the  flowers  stopped  blooming  and  the  trees  no 
longer  bore  their  fruit,  not  because  the  birds  ceased 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN  69 

to  sing  and  the  river  in  God's  garden  ran  dry,  but 
because  man  fell.    He  fell  through  sin. 

Sin  is  the  destructive  force  in  human  society.  It 
is  not  our  laws  and  institutions  so  much  as  our  sins 
that  keep  the  world  sick.  People  must  be  changed 
if  things  are  ever  better.  We  have  wars  because 
there  are  certain  kinds  of  people.  The  shadow  of 
war  is  on  the  world  because  certain  men  in  the  posi- 
tion of  leadership  have  allowed  the  old  ambition 
which  wrecked  Eden  to  creep  into  their  hearts. 
They  have  surrendered  to  the  lusts  of  the  flesh,  the 
lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of  life.  The  world 
is  plunged  in  blood  because  kings  have  yielded  to 
the  old  lure  with  which  Satan  tried  to  tempt  Christ 
when  he  spread  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  before 
Him  and  said :  "  All  these  will  I  give  you  if  you 
will  fall  down  and  worship  me." 

Sin  is  the  trouble  with  the  world.  It  is  back  of 
every  undried  tear  and  every  uncomforted  sorrow. 
Back  of  crime  is  sin.  Back  of  the  blackness  and 
shame  of  vice,  sin  veils  its  fiendish  face.  Down  be- 
neath all  the  hell  that  flames  and  fumes  with  anguish 
and  woe,  sin  feeds  the  fires  of  unrest.  Therefore,  if 
things  are  ever  to  be  better,  sin  must  be  mastered. 
If  happiness  is  to  reign,  sin  must  be  slain.  If 
heaven  is  to  dawn,  sin  must  be  abolished.  Across 
the  face  of  our  human  hopes  that  long  for  happiness, 
there  is  one  question  we  cannot  evade :  "  Shall  we 
continue  in  sin  ?  " 


Let  us  get  Paul's  conception  of  sin.     It  is  not 


70     THE  TROUBLE  WITH  THE  WORLD 

static,  but  dynamic.  He  is  not  thinking  of  sin  as 
a  commodity,  but  as  an  experience.  He  is  not  think- 
ing of  sin  as  a  theological  dogma,  but  as  an  expres- 
sion of  personality.  He  is  not  thinking  of  sin  so 
much  as  of  sinning.  "  Shall  we  continue  in  sin  ?  " 
That  is,  shall  we  keep  on  sinning? 

It  is  therefore  not  so  much  the  penalty  as  it  is 
the  fact  of  sin  which  fills  him  with  horror.  There 
are  those  who  think  only  of  the  penalty.  Some- 
times it  looks  as  though  theology  could  not  get  fur- 
ther. It  is  absorbed  with  the  consideration  of  a 
scheme  to  escape  the  penalty  for  sin,  losing  sight 
of  the  fact  that  if  there  were  no  sin,  there  would 
be  no  penalty.  It  is  not  so  much  that  sin  is  pun- 
ished as  that  sin  punishes.  It  produces  penalty. 
Its  condemnation  is  automatic.  We  see  a  little  of 
the  penalty  here.  We  fear  more  hereafter.  Some- 
times we  feel  that  if  we  could  only  escape  this 
penalty,  we  should  be  satisfied.  But  sin  has  a 
zone  of  calamity  which  no  penalty  can  belt,  and 
the  dark  fact  against  which  Paul  throws  himself 
is  not  the  penalty  of  sin,  but  the  practice  of  sin- 
ning. 

In  the  sixth  and  seventh  chapters  of  this  epistle, 
he  pleads  with  men  to  cease  sinning.  His  first  plea 
is  death.  He  says  that  salvation  means  that  we  are 
dead  to  sin,  and  asks :  "  How  shall  we  that  are  dead 
to  sin  live  any  longer  therein  ?  '*  Then  he  paints 
a  burial  scene,  which  some  mistake  for  baptism,  but 
which  is  a  portrayal  of  our  union  with  Christ. 
"  Planted  together  with  him  in  the  likeness  of  his 
death,  we  shall  also  be  in  the  likeness  of  his  resur- 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN  71 

We  should  quit  sinning,  because  a  dead 
line  has  been  drawn  between  sin  and  Calvary's 
cross. 

His  second  plea  is  life.  If  we  are  dead  with 
Christ,  we  should  also  live  with  Him.  If  He  has 
made  us  alive,  we  should  live  His  life,  not  the  life 
of  sin.  "  Let  not  sin  therefore  reign  in  your  mortal 
bodies,  that  ye  should  obey  it  in  the  lusts  thereof." 
The  life  of  Christ  runs  in  your  veins  not  to  produce 
sin,  but  righteousness.  Sin  nailed  Christ  to  the 
cross.  It  crowned  Him  with  thorns  and  broke  His 
heart.  It  wrung  from  His  dying  lips  the  cry  of 
loneliness,  and  laid  Him  in  the  tomb.  This  is  what 
sin  did  to  Christ.  Christ's  life  is  in  you  not  to  pro- 
duce the  thing  which  crucified  Him.  Since  you  are 
dead  with  Christ,  you  are  dead  to  sin.  Since  you 
are  alive  with  Christ,  you  should  live  unto  righteous- 
ness. By  the  solemn  fact  of  death  with  Him,  by 
the  glorious  fact  of  life  with  Him,  how  shall  we 
continue  in  sin? 

But  Paul  does  not  let  his  conception  of  sin  go  at 
that.  No  stream  ever  ran  but  had  somewhere  a 
source,  and  sinning  presupposes  a  sinful  nature. 
The  stream  of  sin  in  human  conduct  argues  a  seat 
of  sin  in  the  human  heart.  "  Know  ye  not  that  to 
whom  ye  yield  yourselves  servants  to  obey,  his 
servants  ye  are  to  whom  ye  obey  ?  "  Paul  here  and 
elsewhere  commits  himself  to  the  fact  of  original 
sin.  Reformation  is  not  all  of  salvation.  Salvation 
must  affect  character  as  well  as  conduct.  It  must 
change  the  nature  as  well  as  abolish  the  penalty. 
Therefore,  while  "  the  wages  of  sin  is  death,"  "  the 


72     THE  TROUBLE  WITH  THE  WORLD 

gift  of  God  is  eternal  life."  With  this  new  life  ris- 
ing like  a  fountain  in  the  soul,  there  is  some  hope 
of  a  new  stream  of  conduct. 

SIN   AND   LAW. 

Of  what  use,  then,  are  outward  restraints?  If 
sinning  is  the  output  of  a  sinful  nature,  and  if  the 
cure  for  a  sinful  nature  is  an  inner  spiritual  experi- 
ence that  issues  in  a  new  nature,  of  what  value  are 
outward  restraints,  and  of  what  use  is  law?  Has 
not  grace  abolished  law?  And  if  grace,  in  curing 
sin  has  abolished  law,  does  it  not  begin  to  appear 
that  law  is  a  kind  of  confederate  of  sin? 

"  God  forbid !  "  is  Paul's  reply.  He  seems  to  say : 
"  H  your  logic  leads  to  that,  it  is  logic  gone  mad." 
Salvation  instead  of  destroying  law  demands  it. 
For  law  reveals  sin.  "  I  had  not  known  sin  but  by 
the  law,  for  I  had  not  known  lust  except  the  law 
had  said.  Thou  shalt  not  covet."  It  is  when  we 
begin  to  pull  against  the  tether  that  we  discover  our 
limitation.  It  is  when  we  learn  what  we  ought  to 
be  that  we  begin  to  see  what  we  are.  It  is  when 
the  law  shows  its  commandment  face  that  sin  is 
unmasked. 

It  is  law  that  not  only  unmasks  sin,  but  that  re- 
veals our  weakness.  "  For  sin,  taking  occasion  by 
the  commandment,  deceived  me  and  by  it  slew  me." 
It  is  when  we  go  up  against  a  perfect  standard  that 
our  imperfections  appear.  It  is  when  we  attempt 
an  impossible  task  that  we  are  convicted  of  help- 
lessness. Law  demands  perfection.  This  is  God's 
standard.    "  Be  ye  perfect."    Law  summons  to  this 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN  73 

with  its  iron  throat,  and  attempting  to  obey,  we  find 
ourselves  powerless. 

Not  only  does  law  unmask  sin  in  conduct,  not 
only  does  it  reveal  our  innate  weakness  to  cope  with 
sin,  but  as  law  continues  to  thunder  its  demands, 
there  opens  a  door  that  enters  the  secret  chamber  of 
our  being,  and  we  "  see  a  law  in  our  members  war- 
ring against  the  law  in  our  minds,  and  bringing  us 
into  captivity  to  the  law  of  sin  which  is  in  our  mem- 
bers." Who  that  has  struggled  in  earnest  against 
sin  but  has  seen  it  ?  "  When  we  would  do  good, 
evil  is  present  with  us."  Our  own  natures  fight 
against  us.  We  seem  to  be  a  sort  of  dual  person- 
ality. Every  man  is  something  of  a  Dr.  Jekyll  and 
Mr.  Hyde.  In  the  battle  with  sin,  our  own  natures 
turn  against  us,  and  threaten  moral  calamity  and 
niin.  ''Shall  we  continue  in  sin?"  What  other 
course  is  possible? 

THE  VICTORY  OVER   SIN 

Is  the  battle  with  sin,  then,  to  end  in  defeat? 
Paul  begins  this  discussion  by  painting  the  blackest 
fact  of  life  into  his  picture  of  human  experience.  Is 
the  picture  to  remain  dark?  Is  the  struggle  to  go 
on  with  the  ebb  and  flow  of  a  battle  in  which  the 
forces  resident  in  the  soul  contend  for  the  mastery, 
in  which  the  law  in  the  members  and  the  law  in  the 
mind  war  against  each  other  until,  in  the  agony  of 
conflict,  the  tortured  soul  exclaims :  "  O,  wretched 
man  that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body 
of  this  death  ?  " 

Many  a  man  has  uttered  that  cry.    He  has  fought 


74  THE  TROUBLE  WITH  THE  WORLD 

the  beast.  He  has  felt  its  hot  breath  in  his  face, 
and  its  foul  clutch  at  his  throat.  He  has  found  him- 
self growing  weaker.  He  has  felt  temptation  grow- 
ing subtler  and  stronger.  He  has  seen  the  face  of 
his  soul's  dread  adversary  mocking  him  across  that 
hour  of  struggle,  until  his  lips,  blood-red  with  bat- 
tle, have  cried :  *'  Wretched  man  that  I  am ! " 

Ah,  but  law  has  one  other  function!  It  unmasks 
sin  in  conduct.  It  discovers  our  weakness.  It  re- 
veals the  law  in  our  members.  And  then  it  becomes 
a  schoolmaster  to  lead  us  to  Christ.  Just  as  in  the 
old  days  when  the  streets  of  wicked  cities  were  full 
of  peril,  the  schoolmaster  came  to  guide  and  guard 
his  pupils  safely  to  the  school,  so  the  law  comes  to 
the  soul  in  its  battle  with  fierce  temptation,  and 
leads  it  into  the  presence  of  its  conquering  ally,  the 
great  Captain  of  our  salvation.  As  we  see  Him, 
fear  dies,  courage  revives,  a  superhuman  strength 
is  given,  and  hope  shouts :  "  Thanks  be  unto  God 
who  giveth  us  the  victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ!" 

Thus  the  black  is  painted  out.  Sin  is  slain. 
"  Shall  we  continue  in  sin  ?  "  Why  should  we  with 
such  a  Savior?  Victory  is  certain.  You  can  be 
saved.  You  can  conquer  sin.  Then  why  should  we 
who  are  dead  to  sin  live  any  longer  therein?  Let 
us  take  up  the  corpse  and  bury  it,  the  corpse  of  our 
old  sinful  nature.  Let  us  bury  that,  and  follow  Him 
Who  says :  "  I  give  unto  them  eternal  life,  and  they 
shall  never  perish,  neither  shall  any  pluck  them  out 
of  my  hand!" 


V 
OPTIMISM— PAUL'S  ATTITUDE  TO  LIFj: 


"  There  is  therefore  now  no  condemnation  to  them  which 
are  in  Christ  Jesus,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh,  but  after 
the  Spirit"— Romans  8 :  i. 

"And  if  Christ  be  in  you,  the  body  is  dead  because  of 
sin;  but  the  Spirit  is  life  because  of  righteousness/'—Ro- 
MANS  8 :  10. 

"  For  as  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  they  are 
the  sons  of  God.  For  ye  have  not  received  the  spirit  of 
bondage  again  to  fear;  but  ye  have  received  the  Spirit  of 
adoption,  whereby  we  cry,  Abba,  Father.  The  Spirit  itself 
beareth  witness  with  our  spirit,  that  we  are  the  children 
of  God."— Romans  8:14,  15,  16. 

"  For  the  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  waiteth  for 
the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God." — Romans  8 :  19. 

"  For  we  are  saved  by  hope :  but  hope  that  is  seen  is  not 
hope:  for  what  a  man  seeth,  why  doth  he  yet  hope  for?" 
— Romans  8 :  24. 

"  Likewise  the  Spirit  also  helpeth  our  infirmities :  for 
we  know  not  what  we  should  pray  for  as  we  ought:  but 
the  Spirit  itself  maketh  intercession  for  us  with  groanings 
which  cannot  be  uttered." — Romans  8 :  26. 


V 
OPTIMISM— PAUL'S  ATTITUDE  TO  LIFE 

THE  eighth  chapter  of  Romans  is  the  victory 
chapter  of  the  Bible.  It  is  the  safety  pas- 
sage in  this  great  epistle.  Paul  reaches  a 
place  where  he  ceases  to  argue,  and  begins  to  claim ; 
where  he  ceases  to  exclaim  and  begins  to  exult; 
where  he  pushes  aside  for  the  moment  the  great 
problems  he  has  been  considering,  and  surrenders 
himself  to  a  contemplation  of  some  of  his  sublime 
assets.  In  the  midst  of  this  holy  reverie  of  victory 
and  safety,  he  lifts  his  face  toward  the  morning,  and 
says :  "  We  are  saved  by  hope.'* 

We  are  not  saved  by  despair,  but  by  hope.  We 
are  not  saved  by  seeing  how  bad  things  are,  but  by 
seeing  how  good  they  are  going  to  be.  We  are  not 
saved  by  dwelling  on  our  difficulties,  but  by  count- 
ing our  blessings.  We  are  not  saved  by  our  fears, 
but  by  our  faiths.    We  are  saved  by  hope. 

Hope  is  more  than  a  mood  of  cheerfulness.  It 
is  far  more  than  a  bright  and  happy  disposition.  It 
is  decidedly  more  than  a  disinclination  to  take  life 
seriously.  Indeed,  there  is  nothing  more  serious 
than  hope,  and  nothing  should  be  more  scientific. 
Hope  is  careful  of  the  facts.  It  is  careful  not  to 
underestimate  difficulties,  nor  blind  itself  to  the 
strength  of  its  foes ;  but  hope  looks  past  all  of  these 

77 


78  OPTIMISM 

to  the  eternal  and  infinite  resources  at  the  disposal 
of  faith.  Hope  sees  how  things  are  going  to  be 
when  God  has  His  way.  It  discovers  the  invisible. 
It  sees  the  celestial  allies  the  prophet's  servant  saw 
when  his  eyes  were  opened,  until  it  begins  to  ex- 
claim :  "  The  chariots  of  Israel  and  the  horsemen 
thereof !"  Since  hope  is  all  of  this,  it  is  undisturbed 
and  undismayed.  It  is  serene  and  happy,  for  it 
knows  that  in  the  blackest  night  the  dawn  approaches 
and,  in  what  at  the  time  seems  defeat,  victory  is 
assured. 

And  so  hope  is  the  gospel  of  optimism.  It  is  that 
philosophy  of  life  which  knows  that  "  all  things 
work  together  for  good."  It  is  the  creed  that  the 
best  is  yet  to  be,  and  that  therefore  we  may  face 
any  situation  with  triumphant  confidence  and  im- 
perturbable peace. 

Paul's  life  attitude 

This  was  the  life  attitude  of  Paul.  He  had 
enough  to  worry  any  man  to  death.  On  every  side 
he  faced  uncompromising  opposition.  His  enemies 
never  gave  him  any  rest.  They  resorted  to  every 
device  which  the  ingenuity  of  hate  could  invent  to 
plague  his  life.  He  might  well  have  been  discour- 
aged. An  ordinary  man  would  have  grown  sour  and 
pessimistic.  He  might  have  said :  "  I  have  sacri- 
ficed all  to  serve  Christ;  surely  if  He  has  power 
and  is  interested  He  would  take  better  care  of  His 
servants ! " 

But  Paul's  troubles  never  became  worries.  I  do 
not  mean  that  he  was  never  heavy-hearted.    He  lived 


PAUL'S  ATTITUDE  TO  LIFE  79 

too  close  to  his  crucified  Master  to  be  a  stranger 
to  the  moods  of  the  cross.  So  deeply  did  the  iron 
enter  his  own  soul  that  he  could  say :  "  I  bear  about 
in  my  body  the  marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus."  But 
Paul's  confidence  never  wavered.  He  never  thought 
of  himself  as  whipped,  nor  of  his  cause  as  defeated. 
He  was  an  optimist,  and  his  attitude  to  life  was  that 
of  unconquerable  hope. 

See  him  as  he  faces  obstacles.  He  is  not  blind 
to  the  things  in  his  way.  He  does  not  say  that  they 
are  not  there,  but  they  are  there  not  to  defeat  him, 
but  to  help  him  win.  Once  he  said :  "  A  great  and 
effectual  door  is  open  unto  me,  and  there  are  many 
adversaries."  The  opposition  was  a  part  of  the 
opportunity.  You  cannot  handle  a  man  who  handles 
opposition  that  way. 

See  him  as  he  faces  mean  men,  men  who  tried  to 
trick  him,  men  who  played  him  false,  men  like 
Alexander  the  coppersmith,  of  whom  he  said: 
"  Alexander  the  coppersmith  did  me  much  evil.  The 
Lord  reward  him  according  to  his  works,  of  whom 
be  thou  ware  also,  for  he  hath  greatly  withstood 
our  words."  With  that  he  dismisses  the  case.  He 
seems  to  say  that  the  Lord  will  take  care  of  Alex- 
ander. It  is  not  worth  while  for 'him  to  be  dis- 
turbed over  his  rascality.  What  can  you  do  with  a 
man  who  disposes  of  his  enemies  in  that  way?  You 
can  never  frighten  him.  You  can  never  scare  him 
from  his  duty.  You  can  never  intimidate  or  drive 
him  from  the  field.     He  is  invincible. 

See  him  before  his  work.  The  care  of  all  the 
churches  is  on  him,  but  it  is  not  on  his  nerves. 


80  OPTIMISM 

Sometimes  we  are  depressed  by  what  we  have  to  do. 
Our  work  piles  up.  It  looks  like  a  mountain  that 
is  about  to  fall  on  us  and  crush  us.  We  cry  out 
against  the  size  of  our  task.  But  you  never  hear 
Paul  talking  that  way.  Work  never  staggered  him. 
It  elated  him.  It  summoned  him.  He  said :  "  I  can 
do  all  things  through  Christ."  You  cannot  give  that 
kind  of  a  man  too  much  to  do.  You  will  never 
break  his  spirit  with  overwork. 

See  Paul  in  peril,  in  the  midst  of  that  shipwreck 
on  his  way  to  Rome.  Look  into  the  scared  faces 
of  the  passengers.  Listen  to  their  terrorized  cries. 
See  them  as  they  rush  hither  and  thither  trying  to 
devise  some  method  of  escape.  Then  look  into  the 
peaceful  face  of  Paul.  Listen  to  his  voice  of  calm 
courage.  Watch  him  as  he  stands  there  at  ease,  and 
hear  him  as  he  talks  quietly  to  the  frightened  people. 
There  will  be  no  loss  of  life.  He  was  a  man  whose 
soul  was  unafraid,  whose  mighty  spirit  could  look 
death  in  the  face  and  say :  "  All's  well ! " 

See  him  in  loneliness,  on  trial  at  Rome,  in  dis- 
grace. His  friends  are  all  cowards.  They  are 
afraid  to  let  it  be  known  that  they  are  his  friends, 
lest  they  get  into  trouble.  **  At  my  first  answer  no 
man  stood  with  me,  but  all  men  forsook  me."  What 
of  it?  It  was  enough  to  make  his  spirit  sag.  But 
he  does  not  seem  cast  down.  Hear  him  as  he  talks 
on.  "  Notwithstanding  the  Lord  stood  with  me  and 
strengthened  me."  You  cannot  make  that  kind  of  a 
man  lonely.  You  cannot  depress  one  who  lives  in 
unbroken  fellowship  with  God.  You  cannot  make 
him  lonely  who  has  the  infinite  ever  about  him. 


PAUL'S  ATTITUDE  TO  LIFE  81 

Thus  we  find  Paul  in  every  experience  of  life. 
His  optimism  was  not  spasmodic  nor  intermittent, 
but  steady  and  permanent.  It  was  the  habit  of  his 
life.  It  was  the  atmosphere  in  which  he  did  his 
work.  It  was  the  attitude  he  took  to  everything  he 
met  along  the  road  of  service ;  whether  the  day  was 
gay  or  gray,  whether  the  load  was  light  or  heavy, 
whether  the  face  was  friend  or  foe,  whether  the  lot 
was  joy  or  gloom,  Paul  said :  "  I  am  saved  by 
hope." 

THE  GROUND  OF  HIS  OPTIMISM 

What  was  the  secret  of  this  great  mood  of  life? 
Surely  an  optimism  so  splendid  was  not  accidental. 
It  was  more  than  temperamental.  It  must  have  been 
fed  from  some  unfailing  and  inexhaustible  source. 
Paul's  hope  must  have  been  built  on  a  great  founda- 
tion. In  the  first  part  of  this  chapter  the  founda- 
tion is  suggested.  We  find  the  things  on  which 
Paul's  optimism  was  built. 

The  first  was  "  no  condemnation."  "  There  is 
therefore  now  no  condemnation  to  them  which  are 
in  Christ  Jesus,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh  but 
after  the  spirit."  Why  should  one  who  has  won  his 
case  at  God's  bar  be  cast  down?  What  can  earthly 
courts  ever  do  to  convict  a  man  whom  the  courts 
of  heaven  have  vindicated?  Paul  was  thinking  of 
the  cross.  His  cheerfulness  came  from  Calvary. 
His  optimism  rested  on  the  atonement.  He  was 
happy  because  the  great  reconciliation  had  taken 
place.  His  sins  had  been  blotted  out,  and  he  could 
thenceforth  walk  the  earth  uncondemned  and  un- 


82  OPTIMISM 

afraid.  This  is  where  optimism  starts.  No  man 
can  have  much  of  a  hope  who  has  never  been 
saved.  No  cheerfulness  is  of  much  value  that  is 
challenged  at  every  step  by  God's  frown  on  sin. 
The  people  who  are  permanently  happy  in  this 
world  are  those  who  live  on  friendly  terms  with 
God. 

The  second  thing  is  *'  life."  "  If  Christ  be  in  you, 
the  body  is  dead  because  of  sin,  but  the  spirit  is  life 
because  of  righteousness."  Paul  felt  himself  a  new 
man.  Something  had  taken  place  in  his  soul  that 
changed  everything.  His  poor  old  body  was  the 
same — bruised  and  battered  with  the  thorn  in  the 
flesh.  But  Christ  lived  in  him,  and  because  Christ 
was  his  Hfe  he  was  without  fear.  His  foes  could  no 
more  hurt  him  than  they  could  hurt  Christ.  That 
is  how  optimism  is  sustained.  No  man  can  maintain 
his  hope  whose  resources  are  confined  to  the  senses. 
The  world  can  pester  the  flesh,  but  it  is  powerless 
to  batter  down  and  destroy  the  life  of  the  spirit. 
He  whose  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God  is  guar- 
anteed against  calamity. 

The  third  is  "  adoption."  "  For  as  many  as  are 
led  by  the  spirit  of  God,  they  are  the  sons  of  God." 
Paul  felt  that  he  was  God's  son.  Why  should  he  be 
afraid?  Why  should  anything  scare  or  depress 
him?  Why  should  he  give  way  to  melancholy? 
*'  For  ye  have  not  received  the  spirit  of  bondage 
again  to  fear,  but  ye  have  received  the  spirit  of 
adoption,  whereby  we  cry,  Abba,  Father."  This  is 
where  optimism  is  steadied.  Why  should  God's 
child  be  cast  down?     Earthly  values  break  up  and 


PAUL'S  ATTITUDE  TO  LIFE  83 

disappear.  Losses  come.  Health  and  happiness  and 
home  are  taken  away,  but  our  real  treasures  remain 
untouched.  "  We  are  heirs  of  God  and  joint  heirs 
with  Christ,  if  so  be  that  we  suffer  with  Him,  that 
we  may  be  also  glorified  together."  Therefore  hope. 
"For  I  reckon  that  the  sufferings  of  this  present 
time  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory 
that  shall  be  revealed  in  us." 

The  fourth  is  "  expectation."  "  For  the  earnest 
expectation  of  the  creature  waiteth  for  the  manifes- 
tation of  the  sons  of  God."  Paul  was  looking  for 
something  big.  He  was  gazing  past  the  shadows  for 
the  substance.  It  was  not  what  he  had,  but  what 
he  commanded,  that  made  life  great.  That  is  where 
optimism  gets  its  horizon.  The  Christian  is  an 
expectant.  He  is  looking  for  big  things.  The  best 
is  ahead  of  him.  There  are  higher  heights  to  climb, 
and  lovelier  sights  to  behold,  and  richer  fields  to 
enter. 

The  fifth  is  "  prayer."  "  Likewise  also  the  spirit 
helpeth  our  infirmities,  for  we  know  not  what  we 
should  pray  for  as  we  ought;  but  the  spirit  himself 
maketh  intercession  for  us  with  groanings  which 
cannot  be  uttered."  That  is  where  optimism  is  fed 
and  nourished.  Paul  was  an  optimist  because  he 
was  a  man  of  prayer.  He  was  in  constant  com- 
munication with  the  base  of  supplies.  He  believed 
in  Christ  Who  said :  "  Ask  and  ye  shall  receive ;  seek 
and  ye  shall  find ;  knock  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto 
you."  He  leaned  on  Him  Who  said :  "  If  ye  abide 
in  me,  and  my  words  abide  in  you,  ye  shall  ask 
what  ye  will  and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you."    With 


84  OPTIMISM 

that  kind  of  a  bank  account  why  should  one  ever 
be  anxious?  I  do  not  see  how  a  man  who  never 
prays  can  be  optimistic.  His  cheerfulness  will 
wither.  Is  there  anything  in  prayer?  If  so,  why 
should  a  Christian  ever  give  way  to  despair?  Sup- 
pose the  situation  is  bad.  God  is  on  the  throne. 
Suppose  the  world  is  in  turmoil  and  confusion.  God 
is  on  the  throne.  Suppose  our  loved  ones  are  in 
danger.  God  is  on  the  throne.  "  A  thousand  shall 
fall  at  thy  side  and  ten  thousand  at  thy  right  hand, 
but  it  shall  not  come  nigh  thee." 

These  are  some  of  the  things  on  which  Paul's 
optimism  was  founded.  He  was  uncondemned, 
alive  in  Christ,  adopted,  expectant,  tapping  omnipo- 
tence, omniscience,  and  omnipresence  with  prayer. 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  as  he  thinks  of  all  this  he 
exclaims :  "  We  know  that  all  things  work  together 
for  good  to  them  that  love  God,  to  them  who  are 
the  called  according  to  his  purpose !  "  Hope  has 
leaped  up  into  the  realm  of  certitude. 

CHRISTIAN  OPTIMISM 

This  is  Christian  optimism.  If  there  is  one  per- 
son in  the  world  who  should  be  an  optimist,  it  is 
the  Christian.  The  Christian  who  is  not  an  optimist 
is  a  heretic, — not  a  heretic  of  that  comparatively 
harmless  type  which  is  unsound  on  questions  of 
dogma  and  which  formerly  got  itself  burned  at  the 
stake,  but  now  acquires  a  speedy  notoriety  in  the 
secular  press, — but  a  heretic  of  a  far  worse  and 
more  dangerous  type,  who  is  unsound  on  the  spirit 
and  genius  of  Christianity,  and  whose  pessimism  not 


PAUL'S  ATTITUDE  TO  LIFE  85 

only  slanders  God  but  blocks  the  progress  of  His 
kingdom  among  men. 

Surely  if  there  be  one  person  who  can  front  the 
future  undismayed  and  sing  a  song  of  hope,  it  is  he 
whose  gospel  is  Calvary,  whose  might  is  God's 
strength,  whose  allies  are  the  invisible  but  invincible 
hosts  of  heaven,  whose  message  is  the  evangel  of 
divine  love,  and  whose  immortal  hope  shines  like  an 
undimmed  star  in  the  skies.  It  is  no  more  possible 
for  such  an  one  to  fail  than  it  is  for  God  to  go 
bankrupt. 

Christian  optimism  is  more  than  a  spasm  of  forced 
gayety.  It  faces  ugly  realities.  Nowhere  will  you 
find  the  worst  more  faithfully  portrayed  and  more 
frankly  set  down  than  in  the  Bible.  The  Bible  calls 
things  by  their  right  names.  It  does  not  say  that 
man  is  unfortunate,  but  a  rebel.  It  does  not  say 
that  he  is  a  victim,  but  a  wilful  sinner.  It  does  not 
say  that  he  is  sick,  but  dead  in  trespasses  and  sin. 

Not  only  so,  but  it  tempts  men  to  enlist,  not  with 
a  promise  of  reward,  but  with  a  demand  for  self- 
abnegation.  Christ  says  to  those  who  would  enter 
His  service :  "  You  must  give  up  everything,  and  be 
willing  to  go  anywhere.  If  you  follow  me,  I  promise 
you  peril  and  hardship,  sacrifice  and  loneliness, 
shame  and  death.  If  you  follow  me  you  must  give 
up  home  and  parents,  ease  and  comfort,  and  maybe 
life  itself."  Any  earthly  government  that  would 
attempt  to  recruit  an  army  on  this  basis  would  soon 
go  out  of  business.  It  is  enough  to  frighten  the 
volunteer  spirit  to  death.  Surely  one  who  can  be 
optimistic  before  such  facts  and  on  such  terms  of 


86  OPTIMISM 

enlistment  must  have  more  than  a  mellow  mood  of 
cheerfulness. 

And  yet,  after  all,  the  thing  that  makes  an  ir- 
resistible appeal  to  any  kind  of  service  worth  men- 
tioning is  heroism.  We  make  a  mistake  in  trying 
to  soften  down  the  terms  of  discipleship.  Christ 
knew  what  He  was  about.  The  heroic  element  in 
Christianity  turns  out  to  be  its  glory.  It  did  not 
drive  disciples  away.  It  summoned  men  as  wages 
could  never  summon  them,  and  men  will  do  as 
heroes  what  they  would  never  do  as  hirelings.  It  is 
heroism  and  not  gain  that  draws  men  to  the  cross. 
It  is  not  the  mercenary  motive,  but  the  day's  long 
march,  the  nights  on  the  hard  ground,  the  shout  of 
conflict,  and  the  shock  of  battle,  and  the  life  laid 
down,  that  constitute  Christ*s  assets.  The  Christian 
who  is  not  thrilled  by  these  things  is  dead 
freight. 

While  Christianity  blurts  out  the  whole  truth 
about  the  hard  facts  of  the  campaign,  and  sees 
things  as  they  are,  and  says  so,  through  the  groan- 
ing and  travail  of  a  lost  world  it  hears  a  song. 
Through  all  the  storm  of  battle  it  chants  a  hymn 
of  victory.  Through  the  long  night  of  conflict  it 
sees  the  light.  For  Christian  optimism  sees  through 
the  groaning  and  travail  of  creation  the  birth  of 
Christ's  kingdom.  It  sees  in  the  fire-racked,  far- 
flung  battle  line  the  path  to  glory.  It  sees  in  suf- 
fering the  discipline  of  sainthood.  The  world's  woe 
and  sin  are  furnace  fires  in  which  raw  might  gets 
its  temper.  The  hammer  strokes  on  the  anvil  of 
time  forge  out  destiny. 


PAUL'S  ATTITUDE  TO  LIFE  87 

OPTIMISM   AS  AN   INCENTIVE  TO  SERVICE 

It  is  this  Spirit  which  equips  for  service.  It  was 
the  spirit  which  equipped  Paul  as  the  servant  of 
Jesus  Christ.  No  one  will  ever  do  much  for  God 
or  man  without  it.  Christian  optimism  creates  a 
big  life,  for  it  is  a  spirit  of  big  dimensions. 

It  has  breadth.  Its  hope  is  as  wide  as  the  race. 
It  is  optimistic  not  merely  of  some  choice  spirits, 
of  certain  nations  that  have  culture,  of  certain  indi- 
viduals that  have  merit,  of  the  elect,  the  refined,  the 
civilized;  but  of  everybody.  When  everything  else 
is  in  despair,  Christianity  is  full  of  hope.  When 
schemes  of  charity  are  dumb  with  disappointment, 
Christianity  remains  confident.  It  is  not  only  opti- 
mistic of  every  individual,  but  along  the  whole 
moral  scale.  It  is  cosmopolitan  and  racial,  and 
when  once  the  imagination  is  captured  by  it,  the 
soul  can  never  again  be  satisfied  to  dwell  in  a 
cave. 

It  has  depth.  It  is  not  a  shallow  faith  built  on  the 
surface  of  events.  It  roots  itself  in  the  plan  of  God. 
It  is  hopeful  about  the  world  because  it  believes  that 
God  rules,  and  that  things  are  moving  His  way. 
When  they  seem  to  move  otherwise.  Christian  opti- 
mism interprets  it  as  an  optical  delusion.  It  chains 
itself  to  the  only  power  that  can  regenerate  human 
nature, — the  cross  of  Christ.  It  is  easy  enough  to 
tell  people  to  be  good  and  happy  and  useful,  but 
how  to  carry  this  out  is  a  problem.  The  gospel 
alone  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation.  Christian 
hope  roots  itself  in  the  faith  that  whatever  God  wills 


88  OPTIMISM 

will  be  done.  It  therefore  grows  out  of  the  life  of 
God,  and  is  sustained  by  the  supernatural. 

It  has  length.  Its  programme  is  infinite.  It  pro- 
poses to  keep  on  making  things  better  for  others. 
Surely  if  there  be  anything  that  can  suffuse  the  soul 
with  passion,  and  fill  the  pulses  with  unconquerable 
enthusiasm,  it  is  this  vision  of  the  coming  kingdom. 

It  has  height.  Christian  optimism  thinks  of 
changing  the  world  by  lifting  it.  It  also  has  cer- 
titude. It  never  doubts  for  a  moment  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  the  Christian  plan.  Driven  by  a  spirit 
with  such  dimensions  as  these,  of  such  breadth  and 
depth  and  length  and  height  and  certitude,  God's 
servant  is  prepared  for  a  task  whose  results  only 
eternity  can  measure. 

THE  GOSPEL   FOR   OUR   TIMES 

These  are  times  when  we  need  this  gospel  of  hope. 
The  world  is  full  of  a  great  fear.  War  seems  to 
have  unsettled  everything.  Nothing  any  longer 
seems  safe  or  sure.  The  quiet,  peaceful  days  of  a 
few  years  ago  seem  things  of  the  dim  and  distant 
past.  The  nation  is  undergoing  changes  so  rapid 
and  far-reaching  as  to  stagger  and  bewilder  us. 
What  does  it  all  mean?    What  is  to  be  the  end? 

We  cannot  shake  off  the  grip  of  the  conditions 
about  us.  Somewhere,  somehow,  this  cruel  war 
touches  every  life,  and  its  shadow  /alls  across  every 
home.  The  cup  of  happiness  which  a  while  ago  we 
held  so  securely  in  our  hands  is  spilled  out,  and  life 
seems  shaping  itself  for  all  toward  a  Calvary  where 
we  must  make  our  supreme  sacrifice. 


PAUL'S  ATTITUDE  TO  LIFE  89 

The  unprecedented  and  unparalleled  terrors  of 
this  war  are  maddening  as  well  as  depressing.  Who 
would  have  believed  five  years  ago  that  human 
nature  is  capable  of  deeds  so  devilish,  that  under 
any  stress  of  necessity,  driven  by  any  lust  for  power, 
incited  by  any  demand  for  self-preservation,  a  nation 
could  so  far  forget,  could  so  utterly  despise  all  that 
it  had  learned  of  chivalry,  of  generosity  and  mercy, 
as  for  any  cause  to  lend  itself  to  the  perpetration  of 
such  ruthless  horrors?  Before  this  spectacle  of 
hell  upheaving  and  splashing  out  on  earth,  men  are 
startled  and  amazed. 

It  tempts  us  to  despair.  We  become  pessimistic, 
and  conclude  that  it  is  useless  to  struggle.  This  is 
what  I  fear  some  are  doing.  They  are  letting  the 
joy  fade  out  of  life.  They  are  allowing  faith  to  be 
challenged  and  confidence  stained.  I  would  not 
chide  those  who  are  heavy-hearted  over  the  trouble 
that  is  on  the  world.  These  are  times  that  try  men's 
souls,  and  make  people  prematurely  old;  but  I 
wowld  remind  them  that  we  are  not  saved  by  despair, 
but  by  hope.  I  would  bid  them  remember  that  God 
is  still  on  the  throne,  and  that  since  He  is,  how- 
ever wars  may  rage,  and  the  horrors  of  a  war-mad 
world  stain  the  earth,  right  will  ultimately  triumph 
over  wrong. 

Let  us  steady  and  strengthen  ourselves  with  this 
hope.  If  for  us  as  for  Paul,  there  is  no  con- 
demnation, why  should  we  be  afraid?  If  for  us, 
too,  Christ  is  our  life,  why  should  we  be  scared  by 
all  the  shot  and  shell  and  weapons  that  assail  the 
flesh?    If  we  are  also  heirs  of  God,  why  should  we 


90  OPTIMISM 

be  unhappy  over  the  loss  of  property,  or  over  deso- 
lation in  the  earth?  The  real  values  abide.  If  for 
us,  too,  there  is  a  continent  of  expectation,  why 
should  we  ever  feel  lonely  ?  If  we  pray,  why  should 
we  despair?  If  God  be  near,  how  can  happiness  be 
far?    If  God  lives  why  should  hope  die? 

And  so  I  commend  Paul's  attitude  to  life  to  the 
times  in  which  we  live.  The  world  needs  people 
who  hope,  who  are  confident,  who  decline  to  sur- 
render to  gloom,  who  can  keep  their  footing  on 
roads  that  are  slippery,  and  find  their  way  through 
places  that  are  pathless,  and  fight  down  and  over- 
come the  beastly  things  which  assail  all  that  is  holy 
in  life.  We  need  people  who  will  not  give  up,  who 
say  with  President  Wilson :  "  Here  we  stand ;  we 
can  do  none  else,"  who  look  beyond  gloom  and  red 
ruin  and  see  the  fields  green  again,  and  see  the  smile 
of  heaven  on  the  land,  and  hear  the  laughter  of 
children  unafraid,  and  keep  right  on  as  if  all  of  this 
had  never  for  one  moment  been  imperiled. 

To  have  such  a  brave  and  confident  spirit,  one 
must  possess  more  than  a  cheerful  disposition  and 
the  habit  that  looks  on  the  bright  side  of  life.  He 
must  have  a  hope  that  feeds  by  faith  on  the  power 
and  wisdom  and  goodness  of  a  God  Who  is  on  the 
throne.  I  do  not  see  how  people  can  get  along 
these  days  without  God.  Dr.  Hugh  Black  says  that 
four  years  ago  when  he  went  to  speak  to  the  stu- 
dents of  a  certain  university,  he  asked  the  president 
on  what  he  should  speak,  and  the  president  replied : 
"  Talk  about  anything  but  religion."  Recently  he 
went  back  to  the  same  institution  to  speak  again,  and 


PAUL'S  ATTITUDE  TO  LIFE  91 

when  he  asked  the  same  question,  the  president 
said :  "  Talk  about  anything  provided  it  has  re- 
ligion ! " 

I  commend  to  yeu  the  comfort  of  the  gospel  for 
these  trying  times.  Throw  yourself  into  the  arms 
of  your  heavenly  Father.  Let  Him  keep  you.  Let 
the  thought  that  His  will  is  holy  and  sure  make  you 
strong.  Let  the  knowledge  that  "  all  things  work 
together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God,  to  them 
who  are  the  called  according  to  His  purpose  "  fill 
your  tired  heart  with  peace  and  keep  your  worn 
spirit  brave  during  these  days  of  the  world's  darkest 
and  deadliest  tragedy.  "  For  we  are  saved  by 
hope ! " 


VI 

WHERE  THE  BIG  CREEDS  BLEND— PAUUS 
THEOLOGY 


"And  we  know  that  all  things  work  together  for  good 
to  them  that  love  God,  to  them  who  are  the  called  accord- 
ing to  his  purpose."— Romans  8:28. 


VI 

WHERE  THE  BIG  CREEDS  BLEND— PAUL'S 
THEOLOGY 

WHAT  is  attempted  in  this  chapter  is  not 
to  expound  Paul's  theology,  but  to  try 
to  suggest  his  method.  Christ's  servant 
builds  his  theology  out  of  his  experience.  He  does 
not  say :  "  We  believe  it,"  but  "  We  know  it."  There 
probably  was  a  time  when  he  could  not  even  say: 
"  We  believe  it,"  when  he  might  have  said :  "  We 
hope  it," — when  possibly  he  would  have  said :  "  We 
doubt  it."  There  was  a  time  when  he  questioned 
it,  when  he  challenged  it,  when  it  seemed  to  him 
that  everything  was  wrong.  Society  was  going  to 
the  demnition  bow-wows.  But  he  has  grown  out  of 
all  that.  He  has  left  the  fogs  behind  him.  He  has 
climbed  out  of  the  mire  and  swamp.  He  stands  on 
the  sunlit  heights  and  this  is  what  he  says :  "  We 
know  that  all  things  work  together  for  good  to  them 
that  love  God,  to  them  who  are  the  called  according 
to  his  purpose." 

It  is  a  great  affirmation.  If  it  be  true,  all's  right 
with  the  world.  The  track  ahead  is  clear,  and  all 
signals  along  the  road  are  set  for  happiness.  If  it 
be  false,  the  world  is  upside  down.  There  is  no 
track  on  which  to  run,  and  no  happiness  that  is 
worth  our  while  to  seek. 

95 


96    WHERE  THE  BIG  CREEDS  BLEND 

It  would  be  a  work  of  supererogation  to  attempt 
to  prove  this  glorious  affirmative  of  Christian  expe- 
rience. The  sun  does  not  try  to  prove  that  it  shines. 
It  merely  shines.  To  doubt  the  sun,  one  must  be- 
come a  cave  dweller.  He  must  put  out  his  eyes  and 
hide  himself  from  the  light.  God  does  not  try  to 
prove  that  He  is  out  for  human  welfare.  He  simply 
shines  in  the  glory  of  His  changeless  love  for  all 
His  creatures.  To  doubt  God's  goodness  is  to  ad- 
vertise one's  self  as  a  blind  soul. 

In  our  study  of  this  affirmation  from  Paul's  expe- 
rience, it  were  better  to  let  it  take  us  up  to  the  sunlit 
summit  where  such  a  great  assumption  proclaims 
itself,  and  allow  it  to  show  us  how  there  all  the 
big  creeds  blend  and  merge  and  become  a  common 
conviction.  This  is  what  Christian  experience  does 
for  theology.  It  lays  hold  of  the  good  in  all  sys- 
tems, and  reconciles  their  apparently  irreconcilable 
differences. 

UNIVERSALIS  M 

"All  things  work  together  for  good."  That  is 
Universalism.  Universalism  is  the  creed  that  every- 
thing is  headed  for  heaven, — that  no  one  is  to  be 
damned,  that  nothing  is  to  be  lost,  that  what  seems 
to  be  a  wreck  is  only  a  symptom  of  evolution,  that 
what  seems  to  be  defeat  is  merely  the  strategy  of 
victory,  and  that  what  we  call  evil  is  only  the  night- 
time name  for  what  in  the  day-time  we  call  good. 

It  is  the  creed  the  great  poets  have  sung,  and  that 
big  souls  have  cherished.  Hear  Tennyson  as  he 
says: 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  97 

"  My  own  hope  is  that  good  shall  fall 
At  last  far  off,  at  last  to  all, 
And  every  winter  turn  to  spring; 
That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void 
When  God  has  made  the  pile  complete." 

Where  is  the  soul  that  does  not  leap  in  swift  and 
glad  response  to  such  a  creed  ?  One  may  not  believe 
it,  but  how  can  he  fail  to  hope  it?  Where  is  the 
heart  that  does'  not  long  not  only  for  happiness  for 
himself,  but  also  for  his  fellows  ?  To  delight  in  the 
sufferings  of  anybody  or  anything  is  unnatural.  It 
is  a  mark  of  depravity.  It  is  the  sign  of  a  twist 
in  the  soul.  One  may  not  be  able  to  relieve  suffer- 
ing, but  he  can  certainly  pity  the  sufferer. 

God  seems  to  be  a  Universalist  in  all  His  plans 
and  purposes  and  desires.  It  is  blasphemy  to  be- 
lieve that  He  made  His  creatures  to  destroy  them, 
that  He  created  beings  and  then  consigned  them  to 
an  eternal  torment.  He  has  no  title  to  our  love  if 
He  can  be  happy  over  the  misfortunes  of  the  world. 
God  was  a  Universalist  in  the  exercise  of  His  crea- 
tive power.  The  world  was  built  on  lines  of  har- 
mony, and  had  God's  laws  been  perfectly  obeyed, 
pain  and  sickness  and  sorrow  and  death  could  not 
have  entered.  He  is  a  Universalist  in  His  attitude 
toward  the  world.  He  exists  for  all  His  creatures. 
He  is  like  the  air,  or  the  flower,  or  the  beauty  of 
field  and  sky.  Every  creature  may  look  up  into 
God's  face  and  say :  "  Thou  art  mine."  Every 
human  being  who  will  may  claim  Him.  Blind 
Bartimeus  begging  by  the  roadside  could  say :  "  He 


98    WHERE  THE  BIG  CREEDS  BLEND 

is  mine ! "  Rich  Zaccheus  hated  by  his  neighbors 
could  say :  "  He  is  mine !  "  Peter  and  Mary  Magda- 
lene and  the  thief  on  the  cross  could  say :  "  Thou 
art  my  Savior ! "  Even  Judas  Iscariot,  had  he  de- 
sired, could  have  claimed  Him.  God  is  a  Univer- 
salist  in  His  redemptive  longings.  He  does  not 
take  pleasure  in  the  death  of  the  wicked.  It  is 
not  His  will  that  any  should  perish,  but  that  all 
should  be  saved  and  come  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
truth. 

Universalism  is  a  big  creed.  But  we  must  write 
a  question  mark  after  it.  While  the  Bible  says  that 
God  does  not  take  pleasure  in  the  death  of  the 
wicked,  it  does  not  say  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
the  death  of  the  wicked.  While  we  are  told  that  He 
would  have  all  men  be  saved,  we  are  not  told  that  all 
men  are  saved.  As  we  look  about  us,  as  we  look  within 
us,  as  we  note  the  sorrow  and  suffering  in  the  world, 
as  we  see  faces  not  lit  with  happiness,  but  shamed 
with  sin  and  stained  with  despair,  we  are  forced  to 
feel  that  the  sentence  which  says,  "  All  things  work 
together  for  good,"  is  unfinished.  Paul  must  write 
more  out  of  his  experience,  and  tell  us  how  he  can 
so  confidently  affirm  so  glorious  a  conviction.  This 
he  does. 

ARMINIANISM 

"  To  them  that  love  God."  That  is  Arminianism. 
Arminianism  is  the  creed  that  God  is  for  those  who 
treat  Him  right,  that  salvation  is  dependent  on  a 
human  element,  that  happiness  is  only  for  people 
who   comply   with   the    conditions,    and   that   one's 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  99 

world  is  what  he  makes  it.  If  you  want  God  for 
your  Friend,  if  you  desire  to  secure  His  approval, 
you  must  do  His  will. 

Arminianism  is  not  a  shabby  creed.  It  knocks  at 
the  door  of  common  sense.  It  insists  that  we  be 
honest,  that  we  practice  what  we  profess.  Universal 
salvation  is  a  beautiful  dream,  but  how  can  there  be 
salvation  for  a  man  who  hates  God,  who  casts  God 
out  of  his  heart,  who  cuts  Him  out  of  his  life,  who 
arrays  himself  against  the  law  and  order  of  God's 
word? 

If  things  are  to  work  together  for  good  in  God's 
world  for  me,  I  must  co-operate  with  God.  I  must 
be  friendly.  I  must  love  Him,  I  must  work  out  my 
own  salvation  with  fear  and  trembling.  It  is  a  good 
world,  and  one  can  get  out  of  it  whatever  he  may 
choose.  If  he  desires  existence  to  be  a  nightmare, 
it  is  within  his  power  to  thwart  the  word  of  God 
so  far  as  his  own  life  is  concerned,  and  be  lost.  But 
if  he  desires  to  be  happy,  if  he  wants  the  worst 
ever  to  be  turning  to  the  best,  he  will  find  all  about 
him  the  materials  for  happiness,  and  may  build  his 
house  as  big  and  beautiful  as  he  will. 

Nevertheless,  we  are  still  disposed  to  feel  that 
there  is  an  incompleteness  in  the  statement.  Paul 
must  go  further.  We  are  disposed  to  write  a  ques- 
tion mark  after  Arminianism.  Is  it  the  whole  truth  ? 
Does  man  get  only  what  he  deserves?  Is  God  the 
friend  only  of  those  who  are  friendly  to  Him?  If 
His  love  stops  there,  if  He  loves  only  His  lovers, 
if  He  claims  as  His  children  only  those  who  behave 
themselves  and  treat  Him  right,  if  He  disowns  the 


100    WHERE  THE  BIG  CREEDS  BLEND 

prodigal  and  wayward  and  rebellious  members  of 
His  family,  is  He  not  a  poor  sort  of  a  God,  and 
does  not  this  creed  of  Arminianism  go  stale  and 
flat  when  it  faces  the  need  of  the  world?  There- 
fore Paul  writes  on. 

CALVINISM 

"To  them  who  are  the  called  according  to  His 
purpose."  That  is  Calvinism.  Calvinism  is  the 
creed  that  God  is  for  those  whom  He  elects  to  in- 
clude in  His  plan,  that  salvation  is  based,  not  on 
human  merit,  but  on  Divine  grace,  that  God  when 
He  started  to  make  the  world  had  a  plan  in  mind, 
and  proceeded  unfalteringly  in  harmony  with  His 
plan,  that  events  occur  not  because  they  cannot  be 
avoided,  but  because  they  are  pre-determined,  that 
God's  conduct  is  predicated  on  His  character,  and 
not  on  His  inclinations,  that  He  foreknows  because 
He  foreordains,  not  that  He  foreordains  because  he 
foreknows. 

Calvinism  is  a  big  creed.  It  is  a  creed  with  a  big 
God.  Arminianism  says  man  is  great.  Calvinism 
says  God  is  great.  Arminianism  says  man  is  happy 
because  he  deserves  to  be.  Calvinism  says  he  is 
happy  because  he  was  created  to  be.  Arminianism 
says  all  things  work  together  for  good  because  men 
love  God.  Calvinism  says  all  things  work  together 
for  good  because  God  has  so  decreed.  Calvinism 
dips  back  into  the  realm  where  omnipotence  works 
and  omniscience  provides.  If  I  am  to  have  no  bet- 
ter world  than  I  build,  my  house  will  be  mean  in- 
deed, but  if  God  is  building  for  me  a  house  not 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  101 

made  with  hands  eternal  in  the  heavens,  my  palace 
of  happiness  will  be  complete. 

Nevertheless,  is  not  this  creed  of  Calvinism  some- 
what arbitrary?  Can  it  be  that  one  section  of  the 
race  is  scheduled  for  happiness  and  another  for 
woe?  What  kind  of  a  God  is  He  Who  sits  back 
there  in  the  secret  council  chamber  of  His  eternal 
purposes,  and  fashions  one  vessel  unto  honor  and 
another  unto  dishonor,  Who  decrees  one  soul  to 
bliss  and  another  to  misery,  Who  catalogues  one 
section  of  the  race  for  heaven  and  another  for  hell  ? 
We  feel  that  God's  decrees  must  be  interpreted,  that 
those  who  are  the  called  according  to  His  purpose 
must  have  more  than  the  arbitrary  fiat  of  an  a  priori 
God  to  their  credit,  that  while  there  is  an  election, 
there  must  also  be  a  selection.  Fitness  should  qual- 
ify. In  other  words,  the  last  part  of  this  line  of 
Pauline  theology  must  not  divorce  itself  from  the 
two  phrases  which  precede,  and  both  the  second  and 
third  phrases  must  tie  up  to  the  first  before  it  can 
stand  the  test  of  life. 

And  so  we  have  in  a  line  out  of  a  man's  experi- 
ence the  three  big  creeds  of  Universalism,  Arminian- 
ism,  and  Calvinism.  They  are  related  to  each  other 
as  the  three  sides  of  a  triangle.  Neither  is  com- 
plete without  the  other.  You  have  a  poor  gospel 
that  leaves  out  of  its  song  of  hope  a  single  child  in 
God's  great  family.  You  have  a  false  gospel  that 
tries  to  make  men  happy  without  the  love  of  God 
in  their  hearts.  And  you  have  an  infirm  and  power- 
less gospel  that  is  not  ribbed  and  spined  with  the 
changeless  and  eternal  purposes  of  God. 


102    WHERE  THE  BIG  CREEDS  BLEND 

REFLECTIONS 

There  is  something  good  and  great  and  true  in 
every  big  creed  that  has  challenged  and  captured  the 
faith  of  men.  There  is  something  good  and  great 
and  true  in  Universalism  and  Arminianism  and  Cal- 
vinism. Not  all  in  them  may  be  true,  but  something 
is.  Not  one  of  them  has  all  the  truth,  and  not  one 
of  them  can  get  along  without  the  others.  We  can- 
not all  see  things  alike.  Each  sees  through  the  lens 
of  his  personality  and  experience,  and  none  sees 
much  more  than  the  face  of  truth  that  is  over  against 
him.  We  may  rest  assured,  however,  that  nothing 
ever  gets  a  big  and  permanent  following  unless  it 
possesses  some  element  of  value.  We  should  not 
forget  that  we  need  not  only  the  truth  we  ourselves 
discover,  but  also  that  discovered  by  our  brothers 
and  sisters.  Let  us  therefore  be  tolerant.  Instead 
of  fighting  the  man  whose  vision  of  truth  is  unlike 
mine,  let  me  supplement  my  faith  with  his,  and  share 
my  faith  with  him. 

While  creeds  differ,  there  is  a  place  where  they 
blend.  Paul  is  standing  there  in  the  great  affirma- 
tion we  have  been  considering.  He  is  not  engaged 
in  controversy.  He  is  not  arguing  for  dogma.  He 
is  not  a  Universalist,  and  he  is  not  an  Arminian,  and 
he  is  not  a  Calvinist.  He  is  a  man  with  a  Christian 
experience,  who  can  say :  "  I  know."  This  is  where 
the  big  creeds  meet — in  the  lustrum  of  Christian 
experience.  We  differ  in  our  dogmas,  but  when  we 
begin  to  talk  in  terms  of  the  heart's  acquaintance 
with  God,  we  all  speak  the  same  language.     God 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  103 

tells  the  same  story  in  every  life  He  saves.  There 
is  not  a  Universalist  way  of  saving  people,  or  an 
Arminian  way,  or  a  Calvinistic  way.  The  process 
is  ever  the  same.  What  makes  one  a  Christian  in 
the  Episcopal  Church  makes  him  a  Christian  in  the 
Presbyterian  Church.  What  makes  him  a  Christian 
in  a  Protestant  Church  makes  him  a  Christian  in 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  There  is  but  one  Lord, 
one  faith,  one  baptism.  Let  us  not  fling  away  our 
creed,  but  let  us  not  imagine  that  our  little  rite  is 
all.  When  we  are  tempted  to  do  as  the  apostles  did 
when  they  forbade  the  man  who  was  casting  out 
devils  in  Christ's  name  because  he  followed  not  with 
them,  let  us  remember  Christ's  rebuke  when  He 
said :  "  He  that  is  not  against  us  is  for  us." 

Is  there  not  something  greater  than  creed?  It  is 
certitude.  There  is  something  greater  than  belief. 
It  is  to  be  able  to  say :  "  I  know  because  I  have 
believed."  It  is  the  knowledge  that  results  from 
faith.  It  is  that  summit  peak  toward  which  the 
lower  ranges  of  creedal  thought  slope,  and  in  which 
they  merge  and  blend  and  become  one.  It  is  that 
far  height  on  which  a  soul  may  stand  high  above 
all  the  clouds  that  clothe  the  foothills,  and  in  the 
face  of  all  the  fogs  of  doubt  may  say :  "  I  know 
whom  I  have  believed !  "  A  great  soul  must  seek 
that  height  and  be  satisfied  with  nothing  short  of  it. 

The  heights  are  there  if  we  will  but  claim  them, 
where  life  is  serene,  and  peace  unbroken,  and  con- 
viction undismayed, — where  we  may  look  past  all 
troubles,  beyond  all  doubts  and  confusion,  and  know 
that  everything  is  for  the  best.    To  this  height  God 


104     WHERE  THE  BIG  CREEDS  BLEND 

invites  us.  It  is  the  conviction  that  smites  sin  and 
despair  from  human  life,  that  makes  vice  fling  aside 
the  mask  from  its  foul  features,  and  that  breaks  the 
hideous  spell  of  evil. 

In  view  of  all  this,  is  it  not  evident  that  the  essen- 
tials of  Christianity  are  to  be  tested  out,  not  in  the 
realm  of  ecclesiasticism  or  of  dogmatism,  or  of  hu- 
manitarianism,  but  in  that  of  experience,  in  that  of 
the  heart's  acquaintance  with  God? 

What  are  the  essentials  of  Christianity?  The 
point  is  not  what  is  essential  to  an  adequate  under- 
standing of  Christianity,  to  a  sufficient  safeguarding 
of  its  adherents  against  heresies  and  errors,  to  a 
successful  promotion  of  its  aims,  and  to  a  saving 
acceptance  of  its  message;  but  what  is  essential  to 
Christianity  itself, — to  its  being,  its  existence? 
What  are  the  things  without  which  it  would  not  be? 
What  are  its  fundamentals?  What  is  its  essence? 
What  are  the  things  we  cannot  surrender  without 
surrendering,  not  the  form  and  features  of  Chris- 
tianity, but  Christianity  itself? 

One's  answer  to  such  a  question  must  be  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  powerfully  affected  by  training, 
temperament,  and  tradition.  How  much  our  opinion 
of  and  attitude  to  Christianity  are  affected  by  these 
we  are  all  doubtless  unconscious  of.  But  suppose 
one  could  wholly  emancipate  himself  from  tradition, 
and  shake  off  the  spell  of  temperament,  and  unhand 
the  grip  of  training  and  association,  and  thus,  free 
and  unbiased,  take  up  the  religion  of  Jesus  and  en- 
deavor to  answer  the  question,  "  What  are  its  essen- 
tials ?  "  what  would  his  answer  be  ? 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  105 

It  is  probably  not  possible  for  any  of  us  quite 
successfully  to  achieve  any  such  an  adventure.  In 
the  very  nature  of  the  case  the  conclusions  reached 
must  appear  iconoclastic,  and  doubly  so  to  the  con- 
servative, and  almost  dangerously  so  to  the  reac- 
tionary. 

Immediately  the  thought  arises,  Why  discuss  such 
a  question?  Of  what  value  can  it  be?  Must  it  not, 
in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  be  wholly  academic? 
Would  not  a  far  wiser  and  more  profitable  study 
be,  not  What  can  we  give  up  without  giving  up 
Christianity ;  but  What  do  we  most  need  to  promote 
its  widespread  acceptance  and  speedy  and  complete 
triumph  in  the  earth? 

Nevertheless,  as  we  go  along,  it  may  be  discov- 
ered that  these  two  propositions  are  not  so  far 
apart  as  they  at  first  seem.  It  is  barely  possible  that 
some  of  the  things  which  Christianity  has  taken  on 
in  its  development  may  be  a  hindrance  rather  than 
a  help,  may  be  baggage  rather  than  vital  force. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  some  features  have 
been  added,  and  added  not  always  for  the  purpose 
of  making  the  gospel  more  effective,  but  for  the 
purpose  of  bringing  it  as  a  system  into  fuller  har- 
mony with  the  views  of  certain  of  its  adherents. 
That  these  additions  are  not  necessarily  either  essen- 
tial to  the  existence  of  Christianity  or  indispensable 
to  its  efficiency  must  be  evident  from  the  fact  that 
Christianity  existed  without  them,  and  experienced 
what  was  probably  its  golden  age  before  they  took 
shape. 

It  may  be  urged  that  these  additions  came  as  an 


106      WHERE  THE  BIG  CREEDS  BLEND 

evolution  of  Christianity,  and  therefore  are  essen- 
tial to  its  adaptation  to  the  successive  environments 
in  which  it  finds  itself.  In  other  words,  would  the 
first  century  conception  of  Christianity  answer  for 
twentieth  century  life?  I  am  not  raising  here  the 
question  as  to  the  fundamental  principles  involved, 
which  I  assume  we  must  all  agree  are  permanent, 
but  the  application  of  these  principles  to  the  demands 
of  a  growing  world  and  an  expanding  race. 

For  instance,  the  twentieth  century  is  the  century 
in  which  man  is  trying  to  define  his  duties  not  so 
much  to  his  God  as  to  his  fellowmen.  It  is  the  era 
of  reaches  after  human  fellowship  and  brotherhood. 
The  principles  on  which  this  must  be  wrought  out 
have  always  inhered  in  Christian  truth,  but  the  ap- 
plication of  these  principles  opens  new  vistas.  It 
creates  the  age  of  social  service,  and  the  church  finds 
itself  to-day  assaying  a  new  set  of  harness. 

There  may  be  church  leaders  who  will  decline  the 
new  harness,  who  will  say  the  old  is  good  enough 
for  them;  the  traces  which  pulled  the  load  the  fa- 
thers carried  is  all  the  harness  they  want  or  will 
have.  They  will,  however,  not  do  much  with  the 
modern  load  in  that  harness.  A  hand-shovel  was 
a  good  tool  for  railroading  on  the  level  plains,  but 
the  steam  shovel  has  made  the  ditch  across  the 
Isthmus  of  Panama  possible. 

The  church  has  always  been  changing  its  tools, 
and  it  has  always  had  some  faithful  followers  whose 
devotion  to  the  tool  has  made  their  hand,  like 
David's,  cleave  thereto.  They  have  looked  upon  a 
change  of  tools  as  a  change  of  principles.     Is  it? 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  107 

Are  the  forms  and  systems  which  the  followers  of 
Christianity  have  evolved  as  humanity  has  progressed 
and  the  race  has  made  new  demands  on  religion,  of 
more  than  transitory  value?  And  is  not  Chris- 
tianity itself  handicapped  when  it  is  insisted  that  it 
must  regard  them  as  vital  to  its  existence  and  a 
permanent  part  of  its  equipment? 

There  are  three  developments  of  this  class  which 
may  be  noticed  briefly : 

I.  The  first  is  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy.  This 
came  as  one  of  the  earliest  developments  of  the 
church.  It  was  an  effort  not  only  to  bring  the  ad- 
ministration of  religion  into  order,  but  so  to  relate 
it  to  itself  and  to  human  governments  as  to  con- 
serve its  power. 

Perhaps  few  but  will  agree  that  the  hierarchal 
features  of  Christianity  are  not  only  not  essential  to 
its  life,  but  have  proven  a  serious  hindrance  to  vital 
religion. 

Are  we  willing,  however,  to  carry  such  an  esti- 
mate to  the  conclusion  it  legitimately  involves, — 
namely,  that  church  orders  are  not  essential  to 
Christianity,  that  an  ordained  ministry  is  not  a  vital 
part  of  the  religion  of  Christ,  that  church  govern- 
ment is  not  fundamental? 

If  so,  we  must  eliminate  polity  from  the  essen- 
tials of  Christianity.  This  is  not  saying  that  some 
form  of  orders  and  government  is  not  necessary  to 
the  church,  for  it  is;  but  the  church  is  a  product  of 
religion,  not  its  cause.  To  put  water  on  the  table 
some  kind  of  a  pitcher  is  needed,  but  the  pitcher  is 
not  the  water,  and  if  one  is  not  averse  to  being 


108     WHERE  THE  BIG  CREEDS  BLEND 

primitive,  he  may  break  the  pitcher  and  drink  at 
the  spring,  and  still  quench  his  thirst. 

2.  A  second  development  has  been  the  ritualistic 
or  liturgical.  It  came  with  the  effort  to  make 
worship  not  only  decent  and  orderly,  but  impres- 
sive. Sometimes  it  has  attired  worship  in  robes 
most  ornate,  and  sometimes  in  a  garb  most 
simple. 

There  have  been  ritualists  and  anti-ritualists  all 
worshiping  the  same  God  with  the  same  devotion 
and  for  the  same  end,  and  with  the  same  dogmatic 
attachment  to  their  particular  style  of  church  mil- 
linery, whether  it  was  high  mass  in  a  cathedral  or 
a  gospel  song  in  a  mission  hall. 

Are  we  ready,  however,  to  say  that  the  ritual, 
whether  it  be  rich  or  bare,  is  essential  to  worship? 
Worship  is  undoubtedly  vital  to  religion,  and  when 
public,  must  express  itself  in  some  form.  When 
this  form  becomes  regular,  it  of  course  becomes 
formal.  But  is  it  not  possible  to  worship  God  in 
spirit  and  in  truth?  Indeed,  must  not  worship  itself 
exist  before  it  dons  its  clothes?  In  other  words, 
ritualism,  using  the  term  in  its  largest  sense,  is  not 
an  essential  of  Christianity. 

3.  A  third  development  has  been  the  creedal  or 
theological.  This  has  been  an  effort,  not  to  create 
truth,  but  to  bring  Christian  truth  into  orderly  and 
systematic  and  dogmatic  form.  Here  perhaps  the 
most  serious  and  widespread  divergence  of  views 
among  the  adherents  of  Christianity  appears.  Our 
creeds  have  by  no  means  harmonized.  The  church 
has  been  cleft  asunder  by  the  hierarchy,  it  has  been 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  109 

divided  by  ritualism,  it  has  been  split  into  fragments 
by  creeds  1 

Men  have  lined  up  behind  certain  theological  sys- 
tems and  felt  that  any  surrender  of  their  system 
involved  a  corresponding  disloyalty  to  Christianity 
itself.  At  the  same  time  the  adherents  of  these 
hostile  theological  systems  were  at  one  in  the  object 
of  their  worship  and  in  their  surrender  to  the  leader- 
ship of  Christ  and  His  Spirit. 

If  this  be  true, — and  who  can  doubt  it? — if  it  be 
a  fact  that  men  holding  very  diverse  theological 
views  have  been  together  in  the  high  quality  of  their 
Christian  character  and  in  the  value  and  devotion 
of  their  Christian  service,  can  we  say  that  the 
creedal  is  an  essential  of  Christianity? 

Indeed,  is  truth  itself  either  affected  by  or  de- 
pendent upon  our  views  of  truth?  Is  not  Christian 
truth  a  positive  and  permanent  thing,  regardless  of 
the  views  which  successive  generations  or  hostile 
schools  of  thought  may  entertain  about  it?  Indeed, 
is  it  not  likely  that  any  dogmatic  statement  of  Chris- 
tian truth  must  in  the  case  be  inadequate  and  tem- 
porary, by  reason  of  the  fact  that  a  fuller  experience 
may  give  a  larger  vision,  and  this  in  turn  furnish 
the  material  for  an  improved  creedal  statement? 

Thus  our  theological  systems,  instead  of  being 
cast-iron  affairs,  must  be  in  a  constant  state  of 
change.  Creeds  are  only  stepping-stones  on  which 
the  church  passes  from  domain  to  domain  in  the 
realm  of  spiritual  progress.  They  are  the  hard  and 
fast  expressions  of  the  religious  thinking  and  living 
of  the  age  which  creates  them.    I  do  not  mean  that 


110      WHERE  THE  BIG  CREEDS  BLEND 

Christian  truth  is  in  a  state  of  evolution,  for  the 
great  facts  of  Christianity  as  revealed  in  the  Bible 
are  changeless.  I  refer  to  the  dogmatic  moulds  into 
which  men  have  cast  these  truths. 

But  to  say  that  even  these  were  neither  vital  to 
their  age  nor  of  immense  value  to  successive  ages 
would  be  inaccurate.  The  point  is  simply  this: 
Christianity  existed  before  them,  without  them. 
They  are  products  of  the  movement, — not  the  truths 
with  which  they  deal,  but  the  dogmatic  forms  in 
which  these  truths  have  been  cast. 

If  a  whole  Christianity  existed  previous  to  the 
Council  of  Nice  or  the  Westminster  Assembly,  then 
the  acceptance  of  the  theological  views  Jesus  put  to 
these  bodies  is  no  more  essential  to  Christian  truth 
than  ritualism  is  to  worship  or  hierarchy  to  life. 

If,  then,  one  may  be  in  fellowship  with  God  with- 
out a  priest,  if  he  may  worship  without  a  ritual, 
and  if  he  may  serve  God  and  man  without  subscrib- 
ing to  this  or  that  particular  dogma  or  creed,  is  not 
Christianity  handicapped  when  it  is  insisted  that  men 
must  regard  these  things  as  vital  to  its  existence,  and 
a  permanent  part  of  its  equipment? 

If  these  be  ehminated,  is  anything  left?  If  we 
take  the  position  that  the  matter  of  holy  orders  is 
a  non-essential  in  religion,  that  the  matter  of  the 
form  of  worship  is  of  minor  importance,  and  that 
the  matter  of  the  dogmatic  statement  into  which 
truth  may  be  cast  is  itself  a  creature  of  shift  and 
change,  is  there  anything  left  in  Christianity  which 
may  be  regarded  as  fixed,  permanent,  fundamental, 
essential,  timeless? 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  111 

I  would  mention  three  things  which  would  seem 
to  be  essential  and  fixed,  which  no  evolution  can 
revolutionize,  and  without  which  Christianity  would 
cease  to  be  itself.  The  first  is  its  spirit,  the  second 
its  facts,  the  third  its  business. 

1.  The  spirit  of  Christianity  is  sacrificial  service. 
It  is  not  sacrifice  alone,  but  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of 
service.  Its  ideal  of  greatness  is  this  kind  of  serv- 
ice. Its  heroes  are  servants, — not  people  in  menial 
positions,  but  people  who  use  what  they  have  for 
the  common  welfare. 

As  Gerald  Stanley  Lee  remarks  in  "  Crowds," 
when  Christ  said :  ''  He  that  is  greatest  among  you, 
let  him  be  your  servant,"  he  did  not  mean,  ''  Let 
him  be  your  butler,  your  hostler,  your  porter,  your 
footman."  People  who  thus  interpret  Christ  cling 
to  the  mediaeval,  morality-play,  Servant-in-the-House 
idea,  a  kind  of  head-waiter  idea  of  what  Christ 
meant.  Lee  says  Christ  meant  not  servanthood,  but 
service,  and  that  He  might  as  well  have  said :  "  He 
that  is  greatest  among  you,  let  him  be  your  Duke 
of  Wellington,  your  Lincoln,  your  Edison,  your 
Marconi." 

But  it  is  service  with  a  cross  that  is  peculiar  to 
Christianity.  It  is  the  service  which  the  individual 
renders  the  race  by  ofifering  himself.  This  is  peculiar 
and  essential  to  Christianity.  It  is  bigger  than  all 
forms,  better  than  all  sects  and  systems.  It  is  time- 
less and  changeless,  and  has  and  is  changing  the 
world. 

2.  Next  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity  stand  its 
facts.    What  are  they?    There  are  two  that  are  es- 


112      WHERE  THE  BIG  CREEDS  BLEND 

sential, — Christ  and  Christian,  and  inhering  in  them, 
of  course,  the  facts  which  make  Christ,  Christ; 
and  the  facts  which  make  a  Christian  a  Christian. 
Neither  is  complete  without  the  other.  Together 
they  suffice  for  the  facts  of  rehgion.  All  that  is 
vital  is  there  and  they  are  permanent  and  timeless. 
We  do  not  question  that  Christ  is,  for  He  is  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever.  But  is  not  a  Chris- 
tian a  fact  as  timeless?  The  thing  which  made  a 
man  a  Christian  in  the  first  century  is  precisely 
the  thing  which  makes  him  a  Christian  in  the 
twentieth  century.  The  thing  which  makes  him  a 
Christian  in  the  Romish  Church  is  precisely  the 
thing  which  makes  him  a  Christian  in  the  Protestant 
Church.  In  other  words,  Christian  experience  has 
no  sectarian  or  century  labels.  A  Christian  is  a 
Christian,  whatever  church  he  may  belong  to,  what- 
ever form  he  may  worship  by,  whatever  creed  he 
may  subscribe  to,  for  he  is  what  he  is  not  because 
of  these,  but  in  order  to  them.  He  is  what  he  is 
by  reason  of  a  spiritual  experience  that  is  common 
to  all  who  become  the  children  of  God. 

The  question  will  be  raised:  Is  not  the  Bible  a 
fact  of  Christianity  ?  It  undoubtedly  is,  and  for  the 
mission  of  truth-revealing,  it  is  essential.  But  the 
New  Testament  is  not  Christianity,  but  its  product. 
We  may  say  Christianity  would  not  last  in  human 
society  if  the  Bible  were  destroyed;  but  it  could 
exist  without  the  Bible,  for  it  did.  The  Bible,  there- 
fore, is  not  an  essential  of  Christianity.  The  two 
facts  which  are  essential  are  Christ  and  Christian. 
Without  the  first,  the  second  could  not  exist;  and 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  113 

without  the  second,  the  first  could  not  operate  in 
society.  Together  they  complete  the  facts  which  are 
essential  to  the  existence  of  Christianity. 

3.  Next  to  the  facts  is  the  business  of  Christianity. 
Its  business  is  to  bring  men  into  fellowship  with 
God,  and  thereby  bring  about  all  which  this  pro- 
duces. Christ  said :  "  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath 
seen  the  Father."  To  His  followers  He  said :  "  Ye 
are  my  witnesses."  Therefore  the  business  of  Chris- 
tians is  to  testify  to  what  Christ  achieves  and  re- 
veals,— the  Gospel  of  reconciliation  which  brings  us 
to  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and  as  a  sequel  to  this, 
to  the  brotherhood  of  man.  This  is  the  program. 
It  widens  out  until  it  takes  in  everything  and  every- 
body. It  is  the  business  in  which  every  Christian 
is  engaged,  whatever  his  orders  or  doctrine.  It  is 
the  only  business  in  which  any  Christian  has  ever 
been  engaged  or  in  which  any  Christian  ever  can 
engage.  It  is  timeless,  permanent,  essential.  It  is 
not  possible  to  think  of  Christianity  apart  from  this 
mission  any  more  than  it  is  to  think  of  the  sun  apart 
from  sunshine. 

Wherever  the  spirit  of  Christ  is,  a  dynamic  force 
operates,  and  it  operates  invariably  to  one  end.  It 
reconciles  men  to  God  and  to  each  other.  Wherever 
a  Christian  lives,  Christ  lives,  and  He  lives  as  a  re- 
vealing Personality  to  show  the  world  that  God  is 
Father  and  men  are  brothers.  As  men  come  into 
these  relations,  they  are  saved,  and  as  the  world 
comes  under  the  spell  of  this  spirit,  it  becomes 
Christ's  kingdom. 

Here,  then,  are  at  least  three  elements  which  we 


114      WHERE  THE  BIG  CREEDS  BLEND 

may  regard  as  Christian  essentials, — the  spirit,  the 
facts,  and  the  business  of  Christianity.  The  spirit 
is  sacrificial  service,  the  facts  are  Christ  and  Chris- 
tian, and  the  business  is  bringing  men  into  fellow- 
ship with  God  through  a  reconciling  or  atoning 
Savior.  Give  any  nation  or  any  age  these  three 
things,  and  that  age  or  that  nation  may  be  trusted 
to  create  its  own  orders,  to  develop  its  own  ritual, 
and  to  make  its  own  creed.  Withhold  from  any  age 
or  nation  any  one  of  these  three  essentials,  and  we 
shall  find  the  effort  to  make  it  Christian  a  hopeless, 
an  impossible  task. 

If  so,  does  it  not  follow  that  an  emphasis  of  these 
things  as  against  an  emphasis  of  either  orders, 
liturgies,  or  dogmas  must  conduce  to  the  progress 
and  victory  of  Christian  truth?  And  may  it  not  be 
that  an  over-emphasis  of  the  importance  of  orders, 
liturgies,  and  dogmas  may  have  retarded  that  prog- 
ress and  victory? 

In  closing,  I  would  suggest  the  bearing  of  all  this 
on  the  question  of  church  union. 

The  day  is  far  past,  it  would  seem,  for  an  intelli- 
gent Christian  to  defend  sectarian,  or  if  you  please, 
denominational  divisions.  Christ  prayed  that  His 
church  might  be  one,  and  the  kind  of  unity  He 
longed  for  was  undoubtedly  a  unity  that  anybody 
could  recognize.  He  tells  us  that  He  wanted  this 
oneness  in  order  that  the  world  might  know  that 
God  had  sent  Him.  He  seemed  to  say  that  a  divided 
church  meant  a  discredited  Christ. 

We  have,  however,  not  yet  found  a  basis  for  union 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  115 

which  we  can  adopt  without  feeHng  that  such  adop- 
tion involves  disloyalty  to  truth  and  will  probably 
result  in  new  dissensions  and  divisions.  But  we  have 
been  proceeding  on  the  theory  that  this  basis  of 
union  must  be  hewn  out  of  second-growth  timber 
rather  than  from  the  virgin  forest.  We  have  won- 
dered how  much  we  could  surrender  of  our  orders, 
and  how  much  we  could  take  from  our  liturgies,  and 
how  much  subtract  from  our  creeds,  in  order  to  get 
together.  Why  not  give  to  every  Christian  full  lib- 
erty as  to  all  of  this?  Why  require  the  acceptance 
or  rejection  of  any  part  of  it?  Why  not  take  these 
questions  where  Paul  took  his  theology — into  the 
realm  of  Christian  experience — and  try  to  settle  them 
there?  Why  not  make  the  basis  of  union  the 
things  on  which  all  Christendom  is  and  always  has 
been  and  always  must  be  agreed, — the  spirit  of 
sacrificial  service,  the  facts  of  Christ  and  Christian, 
and  the  business  of  bringing  men  into  fellowship 
with  God  and  so  with  each  other? 

Thus  far,  schemes  for  church  union  based  on 
loose  orders  or  mutilated  liturgy  or  an  emasculated 
creed  have  failed,  as  they  deserve  to  fail. 

But  if  Christ  wants  His  people  one,  there  must 
be  a  way  to  get  together,  and  so  thoroughly  and 
genuinely  together  that  even  the  dull,  flesh-eyed 
world  shall  recognize  the  imion! 


VII 

PREDESTINATION— PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF 
THE  DIVINE  DECREES 


"For  whom  he  did  foreknow,  he  also  did  predestinate  to 
be  conformed  to  the  image  of  his  Son,  that  he  might  be 
the  firstborn  among  many  brethren.  Moreover,  whom  he 
did  predestinate,  them  he  also  called:  and  whom  he  called, 
them  he  also  justified:  and  whom  he  justified,  them  he 
also  glorified. 

What  shall  we  then  say  to  these  things?  If  God  be  for 
us,  who  can  be  against  us?  He  that  spared  not  his  own 
Son,  but  delivered  him  up  for  us  all,  how  shall  he  not 
with  him  also  freely  give  us  all  things  ?  " — Romans  8 :  29-32. 

**  Having  predestinated  us  unto  the  adoption  of  children 
by  Jesus  Christ  to  himself,  according  to  the  good  pleasure 
of  his  will,  to  the  praise  of  the  glory  of  his  grace,  wherein 
he  hath  made  us  accepted  in  the  beloved :  In  whom  we 
have  redemption  through  his  blood,  the  forgiveness  of 
sins,  according  to  the  riches  of  his  grace ;  Wherein  he  hath 
abounded  toward  us  in  all  wisdom  and  prudence;  Having 
made  known  unto  us  the  mystery  of  his  will,  according  to 
his  good  pleasure  which  he  hath  purposed  in  himself; 
That  in  the  dispensation  of  the  fulness  of  times  he  might 
gather  together  in  one  all  things  in  Christ,  both  which  are 
in  heaven,  and  which  are  on  earth;  even  in  him:  In  whom 
also  we  have  obtained  an  inheritance,  being  predestinated 
according  to  the  purpose  of  him  who  worketh  all  things 
after  the  counsel  of  his  own  will:  That  we  should  be  to 
the  praise  of  his  glory,  who  first  trusted  in  Christ." — 
Ephesians  1:5-12. 


VII 

PREDESTINATION— PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF 
THE  DIVINE  DECREES 

IF  anyone  concludes  that  because  the  big  creeds 
blend  in  Paul's  experience,  his  theology  there- 
fore lacks  a  spine,  he  is  far  afield  from  the 
facts.  Paul  says :  "  We  know  that  all  things  work 
together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God,  to  them 
who  are  the  called  according  to  his  purpose."  All 
that  is  great  in  Universalism,  in  Arminianism,  and 
in  Calvinism  lies  in  the  experience  of  the  soul  that 
is  personally  acquainted  with  Christ.  This,  how- 
ever, does  not  mean  a  weak  faith.  Paul  goes  on  to 
say :  "  For  whom  he  did  foreknow,  he  also  did  pre- 
destinate to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of  his  Son, 
that  he  might  be  the  firstborn  among  many  brethren. 
Moreover,  whom  he  did  predestinate,  them  he  also 
called;  and  whom  he  called,  them  he  also  justified; 
and  whom  he  justified,  them  he  also  glorified.  What 
shall  we  then  say  to  these  things?  If  God  be  for 
us,  who  can  be  against  us  ?  "  There  is  strength  for 
you.  There  is  stability.  There  is  the  steel  and  the 
granite.  There  is  Paul's  doctrine  of  the  divine  de- 
crees. He  was  not  afraid  of  God's  decrees.  He 
was  not  in  a  panic  because  God  is  in  control.  Paul's 
God  is  no  weakling.  He  is  sovereign,  Master  of  the 
universe.  Therefore,  His  servant  is  not  afraid,  but 
119 


120  PREDESTINATION 

walks  the  earth  with  quiet  confidence,  and  faces  the 
future  with  undismayed  hope.  Paul  beUeved  in  pre- 
destination. As  a  servant  of  Christ,  the  thought 
that  the  will  of  God  is  back  of  all  that  comes  to  pass 
did  not  frighten  him. 

DIFFICULTIES 

The  doctrine  of  predestination  furnishes  serious 
difficulties  to  many  good  people.  These  difficulties 
are  not  imaginary.  Is  God  arbitrary?  Is  He  par- 
tial? Has  He  from  all  eternity  and  apart  from  all 
voice  and  act  of  ours  sovereignly  decreed  one  por- 
tion of  the  human  race  to  everlasting  happiness  and 
another  portion  to  everlasting  woe?  Is  the  world 
what  it  is  because  of  God's  f oreordination  ?  If  so, 
how  can  God  escape  responsibility  for  the  existence 
of  sin?  Is  not  divine  justice  reduced  to  a  fiction? 
Do  not  God's  eternal  decrees  brand  Him  with  fa- 
voritism in  that  highest  and  most  sacred  of  all  the 
realms  of  life,  the  spiritual?  These  are  some  of  the 
difficulties  connected  with  predestination.  It  is  use- 
less to  deny  them,  for  they  are  there,  and  insistent. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  pertinent  to  inquire  whether  they 
are  difficulties  that  inhere  in  the  doctrine  or  diffi- 
culties that  arise  because  of  the  limitation  of  human 
thought  in  its  efforts  to  apprehend  and  understand 
the  doctrine. 

We  may  lay  it  down  as  a  safe  rule  to  begin  with 
that  the  Christian  should  go  fearlessly  and  unhesi- 
tatingly wherever  the  Bible  may  lead.  A  doctrine  is 
true  and  credible  not  because  it  is  pleasant  to  believe 
or  easy  to  understand  or  popular  with  the  masses, 


DOCTRINE  OF  DIVINE  DECREES      121 

but  because  it  is  taught  in  sacred  Scripture.  The 
Christian  must  be  willing  to  sacrifice  human  reason 
and  human  logic  to  the  explicit  statements  of  Scrip- 
ture ;  for  reasons  and  logic  may  be  fallible.  They  do 
not  always  stand  the  test  of  experience.  The  Bible 
we  believe  to  be  infaUibly  inspired,  and  inerrant  in 
all  questions  of  faith  and  practice.  It  invites  the 
test  of  experience,  and  is  vindicated  thereby.  The 
Bible  gives  to  man  his  highest,  clearest,  truest,  di- 
vinest  vision  of  God. 

When  Mr.  Stanley  was  wandering  around  in 
Central  Africa  in  connection  with  his  relief  expedi- 
tion for  the  rescue  of  Emin  Pasha  who,  as  it  turned 
out  afterwards,  did  not  want  to  be  rescued,  he  came 
upon  the  famed  and  what  was  thought  up  to  that 
time  to  be  the  fabulous  "  Mountains  of  the  Moon." 
For  days  he  and  his  men  wandered  around  the  base 
of  these  mountains,  catching  glimpses  of  projecting 
spurs  and  ample  slopes ;  but  the  heavy  and  perpetual 
mists  that  swathed  the  loftier  summits  limited  the 
perspective  and  made  the  vision  unsatisfactory.  One 
day,  however,  the  atmospheric  conditions  suddenly 
changed.  The  clouds  lifted.  There  was  a  rift  of 
heaven's  sunshine  into  the  veil  of  mist,  and  the  great 
explorer  saw  mighty  Ruwenzori  in  its  full  and  un- 
diminished splendor,  looked  i^pon  the  lofty  mountain 
from  its  base  sheer  up  to  the  dizzy  summit  of  its 
sublime  peaks  towering  eighteen  to  nineteen  thou- 
sand feet  in  height,  crowned  with  perpetual  snows 
and  standing  through  all  the  centuries  as  the  source 
of  the  Nile  and  the  annual  replenisher  of  its  fertile 
valleys. 


122  PREDESTINATION 

The  view  which  human  reason  has  of  God  is  like 
the  cloud-shut  mist-limited  perspective  which  Stan- 
ley and  his  men  had  of  the  Ruwenzori  Mountain. 
We  touch  God  here  and  there  in  our  little  life,  but 
God  is  infinitely  more  than  that  we  touch.  The 
Bible  gives  us  the  one  clear  view  of  God,  from  earth 
to  heaven,  from  this  point  of  time  here  out  into  the 
limitless  eternity.  It  is  God's  revelation  of  Him- 
self. It  is  faultless.  What  does  the  Bible  discover 
God  to  be?  What  has  it  to  say  about  His  de- 
crees ? 

Predestination  is  in  the  Bible.  There  can  be  no 
more  doubt  of  it  than  that  the  sun  shines.  What- 
ever predestination  may  mean,  it  is  in  the  Bible  ex- 
plicitly, repeatedly,  unmistakably.  The  word  and 
its  counterparts  are  ever  occurring.  God  "  chooses," 
"  elects,"  "  wills,"  "  arranges,"  *'  determines,"  "  fore- 
ordains," '*  predestinates."  Israel  was  an  "  elect  na- 
tion," "  a  pecuHar  people."  The  "  king's  heart  is 
in  the  hand  of  the  Lord  as  the  rivers  of  water;  he 
turneth  it  whithersoever  he  will." 

Similar  passages  might  be  quoted  at  length. 
Whatever  predestination  may  mean,  the  Bible  teaches 
it.  It  recognizes  that  God  was  thinking,  planning, 
determining  from  the  foundation  of  the  world,  and 
that  what  has  transpired  has  transpired  not  by  acci- 
dent, but  by  divine  prearrangement.  Bethlehem  was 
not  the  product  of  chance.  Calvary  was  not  a 
fortuitous  incident.  The  Bible  is  not  the  output  of 
circumstances.  Back  of  all  is  the  "  determinate 
council  and  foreknowledge  of  God." 

Predestination   is   likewise    in   the   creeds   of   all 


DOCTRINE  OF  DIVINE  DECREES      123 

Christian  churches.  It  is  there  either  explicitly  or 
implied,  either  by  direct  statement  or  by  necessary 
inference.  There  is  no  exception.  It  is  true  of  papal 
as  well  as  of  Protestant  communions.  It  must  be 
true  so  long  as  the  Bible  is  of  any  authority  in  shap- 
ing the  church  creed. 

To  be  sure,  some  churches  state  the  doctrine 
mildly.  They  endeavor  to  mellow  it,  to  limit  its 
sweep,  to  reduce  it  to  the  capacity  of  human  thought. 
But  all  must  recognize  its  presence.  The  difference 
between  the  denominations  with  regard  to  predestina- 
tion is  not  that  one  church  accepts  it  and  another 
denies  it.  The  difference  is  in  the  place  assigned  to 
the  doctrine. 

We  must  believe  in  predestination.  If  one  thinks 
at  all  on  the  subject  of  religion,  he  must  believe  in 
predestination  or  he  must  believe  in  something 
worse.  We  face  a  condition.  The  world  exists, 
humanity  is  here  with  a  certain  history  behind  it, 
with  certain  influences  and  opportunities  around  it, 
with  certain  aspirations  and  dispositions  within,  and 
all  of  this  under  certain  laws  and  for  manifest  pur- 
poses. How  does  it  all  come  about?  If  there  be  a 
God,  what  part  did  He  take  in  what  lies  behind, 
what  has  He  to  do  with  the  present,  and  what  influ- 
ence will  He  have  on  the  future  ?  Is  He  silent,  indif- 
ferent, or  active  ?  Is  God  merely  a  spectator  ?  Hav- 
ing made  the  world,  does  He  leave  it  to  manage 
itself  while  He  sits  serene  and  satisfied  in  His  dis- 
tant heaven  looking  on  with  supreme  indifference 
and  unconcern,  beholding  the  struggles  of  His  crea- 
tures, a  witness  to  their  woes,  and  Himself  clothed 


124  PREDESTINATION 

with  omnipotence  but  refusing  to  enter  the  combat 
or  lend  a  hand  in  the  struggle? 

This  is  one  view.  God  is  merely  a  spectator.  If 
so,  He  is  unmerciful.  He  may  call  Himself  a  God 
of  love,  but  it  is  an  empty  boast.  If  God  sees  our 
hardships,  trials,  temptations,  sorrows,  and  ceaseless 
struggles,  but  while  possessing  the  power,  refuses 
to  relieve  His  creatures,  He  is  heartless.  Rather 
than  accept  such  a  monstrous  travesty  of  the  Deity, 
I  welcome  predestination  with  all  its  difficulties. 

Is  God  not  even  a  spectator?  Is  He  ignorant  as 
well  as  unconcerned?  Having  made  the  world,  has 
He  not  only  turned  His  back  on  it,  but  forgotten  all 
about  it?  Has  the  present  situation  been  produced 
by  chance?  Are  the  laws  of  nature  the  result  of 
accident?  If  so,  never  parent  had  stranger  off- 
spring. Chance  is  fickle,  but  the  laws  of  life  are 
fixed.  From  the  earliest  dawn  of  history,  they  have 
been  working  with  clock-like  regularity.  How 
comes  it  that  a  thing  so  fickle  and  changing  as 
chance  has  brought  about  a  result  so  fixed  and  un- 
changing as  law  ?  Nevertheless,  there  are  those  who 
are  willing  to  accept  even  this  in  order  to  get  rid  of 
God's  interference.  God  is  not  only  not  looking  on. 
He  does  not  even  know  that  we  are  here.  If  that 
be  true,  the  doubt  may  be  excused  which  asks: 
Where  is  God?  What  is  He  for?  What  is  He 
about?    Is  He  at  all? 

But  one  other  alternative  is  possible.  It  is  pre- 
destination. God  had,  has,  and  will  always  have  a 
controlling  hand  in  the  affairs  of  the  world.  He  is 
neither  indifferent  nor  ignorant.     He  sees,  knows, 


DOCTRINE  OF  DIVINE  DECREES     125 

feels,  thinks,  plans,  executes,  and  has  always.  If 
God  is  ignorant  of  human  life,  there  is  no  escape 
from  atheism.  If  God  is  merely  a  spectator,  there 
is  no  escape  from  infidelity.  Only  when  God*s 
mighty  will  is  found  behind  everything,  working  out 
His  eternal  purposes,  does  faith  find  standing  room 
and  prayer  a  voice.  Granted  this  alternative  that 
predestination  is  a  reality,  and  prayer  ceases  to  be 
a  rushlight  flickering  fitfully  in  the  swamps  of 
superstition  and  becomes  life's  guiding  star  shin- 
ing high  and  clear  above  the  tablelands  of  faith. 

CARICATURES 

Predestination  has  been  made  unpopular  by  cari- 
cature, unworthy  apology,  and  inadequate  statement. 
It  has  been  confounded  with  absolutism.  It  has 
been  regarded  as  an  ironshod  decree  of  the  Almighty 
that  rides  remorselessly  over  human  need,  human 
desire,  human  merit,  human  character,  driving  re- 
sistlessly  toward  its  fixed  and  unalterably  predeter- 
mined goal,  landing  one  portion  of  humanity  in 
heaven  and  another  in  hell,  despite  all  the  efforts 
they  may  make  to  the  contrary.  The  dogmaticians 
have  divorced  God's  decrees  from  God's  heart.  They 
have  made  the  doctrine  into  a  dogma  dry  and  sap- 
less. They  have  reduced  it  to  a  meatless  skeleton 
and  offered  it  to  the  soul  to  feed  upon.  Having  lost 
its  fragrance,  its  bloom,  its  lifebeat,  is  it  strange  that 
men  have  come  to  regard  it  as  a  hard  doctrine?  If 
predestination  is  but  the  arbitrary  fiat  of  an  a  priori 
God,  there  is  little  in  it  to  comfort  faith  or  encour- 
age hope.    But  that  is  not  predestination.    It  is  the 


126  PREDESTINATION 

nightmare  of  it.  Rather  than  believe  in  such  a  God 
as  this,  I  prefer  not  to  know  Him  at  all. 

Predestination  has  been  matched  against  human 
freedom.  It  has  been  thought  to  reduce  man's  free 
agency  to  a  fiction.  Necessity  has  been  confounded 
with  certainty,  and  it  has  been  thought  impossible 
for  man  to  do  freely  what  God  has  purposed.  It 
has  thus  branded  with  insincerity  every  gospel  invi- 
tation and  schedule  for  everlasting  happiness  or 
endless  woe,  with  total  disregard  of  individual  pref- 
erence or  personal  fitness.  This  is  not  predestina- 
tion. It  is  its  caricature.  Such  a  dogma  is  contra- 
dicted in  our  own  experience  as  well  as  by  every 
page  of  revelation.  The  Bible  teaches  that  God's 
decrees,  instead  of  destroying,  establish  the  right  of 
choice  on  the  part  of  His  creatures.  God  projected 
the  human  race  along  the  lines  of  free  agency.  A 
part  of  His  eternal  plan  was  that  man  should  not 
be  an  automaton,  but  an  intelligent  being  played  on 
by  motives  and  invested  with  the  right  and  power 
freely  to  choose.  Thus  predestination,  instead  of 
preventing  man's  free  agency,  is  its  eternal  decretal. 

These  are  some  of  the  caricatures  of  the  doctrine. 
It  has  also  suffered  from  apology  and  unworthy  de- 
fense. Accepting  the  caricature  as  a  fair  and  faith- 
ful portrait,  it  has  been  urged  that  the  doctrine  is 
to  be  accepted  because  God  has  the  right  to  do  as 
He  pleases  with  His  creatures.  He  owns  them.  If 
He  wants  to  send  some  to  heaven,  He  may.  If  He 
would  send  others  to  hell,  it  is  His  right.  Who  shall 
question  the  rights  of  the  Almighty,  or  put  Him  on 
trial  for  any  of  His  acts?     If  God  be  this,  He  is 


DOCTRINE  OF  DIVINE  DECREES      127 

merely  a  great  slave  master,  His  people  the  most 
abject  of  slaves,  and  worship  but  sullen  submission 
to  the  inevitable.  But  God  is  a  Father.  His  people 
are  His  children,  and  worship  is  adoration  of  God's 
goodness  and  love. 

Another  view  regards  God  as  under  no  obligation. 
He  has  made  us.  We  are  pensioners  on  His  bounty 
for  our  very  existence.  God  owes  us  nothing.  He 
is  not  responsible  to  us.  Logically  that  is  true. 
Morally  it  is  a  lie.  God  is  under  obligation,  the 
obligation  of  His  love,  of  His  mercy,  of  His  nature. 
God  is  bound  to  be  true  to  Himself,  and  to  say  that 
He  may  arbitrarily  save  one  and  damn  another  is 
to  bring  an  indictment  against  the  character  of  God 
as  black  as  hell  itself. 

Still  another  view  is  that  God  for  some  inscrutable 
purpose,  in  order  to  accomplish  His  own  glory,  has 
sovereignly  decreed  some  to  be  saved  and  others  to 
be  lost.  There  is  a  tradition  that  some  of  the  Lord's 
elect,  in  an  age  of  the  church  which  must  not  have 
been  very  far  removed  from  the  dark  ages,  made 
the  supreme  test  of  orthodoxy  on  the  part  of  those 
seeking  church  membership  a  willingness  to  be 
damned  should  it  be  for  God's  glory.  What  blas- 
phemy! God  is  not  glorified  by  the  damnation  of 
His  creatures.  It  is  not  His  will  that  one  of  these 
little  ones  should  perish.  Besides,  if  God  can  be 
glorified  by  the  salvation  of  a  part,  why  not  by  the 
salvation  of  all?  How  comes  it  that  God's  glory 
can  be  so  easily  satisfied?  God's  glory  is  His  good- 
ness, His  grace,  and  if  His  grace  longs  for  the  re- 
demption of  one  soul,  much  more  for  all! 


128  PREDESTINATION 

Another  lame  approach  to  the  subject  is  that  pre- 
destination has  reference  to  nations  and  not  to  indi- 
viduals, that  God  predestinates  the  mass,  but  declines 
to  touch  the  unit.  This  will  not  stand  the  test  of 
even  a  kindergarten  mind.  Anyone  who  thinks  a 
thing  out  knows  that  the  nation  is  made  up  of  indi- 
viduals, and  that  the  individual  citizens  of  a  nation 
determine  the  nation's  destiny.  The  only  way  God 
can  predestinate  America  is  by  predestinating  Ameri- 
cans. To  substitute  nations  for  individuals  is  merely 
an  artful  dodge  of  the  main  issue.  It  is  the  substi- 
tution of  a  fog-bank  for  an  explanation. 

WHAT  IS   PREDESTINATION? 

Perhaps  the  decks  have  been  sufficiently  cleared 
for  a  direct  approach  to  the  subject.  What  is  pre- 
destination? It  is  God's  plan  for  man's  redemption. 
Let  us  keep  clearly  before  us  what  is  meant  by  pre- 
destination, first  negatively,  and  then  positively.  It 
is  not  the  doctrine  that  God's  decrees  nullify  human 
freedom.  We  are  out  of  our  depth  at  once.  We 
cannot  reconcile  divine  sovereignty  and  man's  free 
agency,  but  we  must  believe  both.  At  first  flush, 
foreordination  may  seem  identical  with  fatalism,  but 
it  seems  so,  not  because  it  is,  but  because  our  minds 
confuse  things  at  long  range.  The  bands  of  Saturn 
are  not  bands  of  gas,  as  we  have  long  thought,  but 
of  innumerable  satellites  revolving  around  the  planet. 
So  if  our  intellectual  vision  were  keen  enough,  we 
should  discover  that  predestination  is  not  the  fatal- 
istic decree  of  an  arbitrary  God  Who  smashes  with 
His  fiat  all  into  sameness,  but  that  before  Him  the 


DOCTRINE  OF  DIVINE  DECREES      129 

crowd  breaks  up  into  individuals  whose  personality 
He  regards  as  sacred. 

Neither  is  it  the  doctrine  that  God  decrees  the 
damnation  of  any  soul.  The  finite  mind  is  disposed 
to  say  that  God's  failure  to  elect  is  equivalent  to  a 
decree  to  damn.  This,  however,  is  just  another  case 
of  where  the  shortness  of  human  reason  makes  vi- 
sion dim.  We  must  follow,  however,  not  human 
reason,  but  divine  revelation,  which  assures  us  that 
God  is  not  willing  that  any  should  perish.  It  may 
throw  light  on  the  situation  to  remember  that  salva- 
tion is  more  than  a  phrase  for  post-mortem  bliss.  It 
deals  primarily  with  character,  and  incidentally  with 
destiny.  To  say  that  God  foreordains  men  to  be  pro- 
fane, licentious,  covetous,  criminal,  is  a  monstrous 
blasphemy.  It  is  not  less  blasphemous  to  make  Him 
responsible  for  the  damnation  of  any  soul. 

Considered  positively,  predestination  is  God's  pre- 
arranged plan  for  man's  redemption.  This  means 
that  God  is  in  control  and  not  controlled.  He  is  a 
real  Deity  on  the  throne.  He  is  not  waiting  for 
something  to  happen.  He  is  not  at  the  mercy  of  the 
forces  about  Him. 

It  means  that  salvation  is  not  an  accident,  a  matter 
of  chance,  an  afterthought,  but  that  before  the 
church  was  organized,  before  Christ  died  on  Cal- 
vary, before  symbolic  altars  ran  in  sacrificial  blood, 
before  creation  and  the  song  of  the  morning  stars, 
back  in  the  dim  depths  of  His  eternal  councils,  God 
had  a  plan. 

This  plan  He  follows,  and  will  follow  to  the  end. 
This  does  not  mean  that  there  is  no  evolution,  no 


130  PREDESTINATION 

gradual  unfolding,  no  times  when  to  sense  the  plan 
seems  to  fail;  but  it  does  mean  that  in  everything, 
steadily  and  majestically,  the  plan  draws  ever  nearer 
"  to  that  one  far-off  divine  event  to  which  the  whole 
creation  moves,"  and  this  event  is  not  a  phase  of 
civilization  nor  the  evolution  of  a  conscience.  It  is 
redemption.  Predestination  is  God's  changeless  and 
eternal  plan  for  man's  redemption. 

What,  then,  is  the  plan  ?  For  the  answer,  we  must 
go  to  the  Bible,  since  in  the  nature  of  the  case  the 
answer  must  be  a  revelation.  Only  God  can  tell  us 
what  He  was  thinking  about  before  the  foundation 
of  the  world.  Some  man  may  have  a  notion  as  to 
what  He  should  have  been  thinking  about,  but  the 
matter  worth  while  is  not  his  notion,  but  what  God 
has  deigned  to  reveal  by  His  eternal  plan.  He  has 
probably  not  revealed  all, — just  the  fringe,  but  all 
we  need,  fully  as  much  as  we  can  take  in,  certainly 
enough  to  fill  us  with  a  holy  confidence. 

It  is  significant  that  the  two  great  predestination 
passages  of  the  Bible  were  both  written  by  Paul, — 
one  in  his  letter  to  the  Ephesians,  the  other  in  his 
letter  to  the  Romans.  These  two  passages  should 
be  considered  together  in  connection  with  this  sub- 
ject. In  considering  the  passage  in  Ephesians,  we 
should  keep  in  mind  the  situation  which  redemptive 
grace  confronts  in  human  nature.  God's  will  im- 
pinges on  a  soul  "  dead  in  trespasses  and  in  sin."  It 
will  not  help  the  discussion  to  inquire  into  the  cause 
of  this  condition,  and  it  will  not  change  the  facts 
either  to  deny  their  existence  or  to  denounce  their 
cause.    One  may  be  spiritually  dead,  and  not  know 


DOCTRINE  OF  DIVINE  DECREES      131 

it.  A  story  is  told  that  in  the  days  of  stout  Damascus 
blades  a  royal  executioner  one  day  cut  off  a  cul- 
prit's head,  and  did  it  with  such  skill  and  deftness 
that  the  criminal  did  not  know  he  was  dead.  His 
head  retained  its  position  on  the  trunk,  his  eyes  con- 
tinued to  blink  and  his  lips  to  twitch,  until  the 
executioner  put  a  pinch  of  snuff  to  his  nose, 
when  the  head  sneezed  and  rolled  off  on  the 
ground ! 

One  may  simulate  spiritual  life  without  experienc- 
ing it.  One  may  be  spiritually  dead,  and  still  rea- 
son, moralize,  and  even  philosophize  about  religious 
truths.  His  dead  condition  asserts  itself  whenever 
the  demand  is  made  upon  him  for  the  functions  of 
spiritual  life.  This,  then,  is  the  situation  which  pre- 
destination confronts  in  the  individual  life — a  lost 
soul  absolutely  devoid  of  spiritual  initiative.  It 
must  therefore  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case  be 
"  not  of  him  that  willeth,  nor  of  him  that  runneth, 
but  of  God  that  showeth  mercy." 

We  turn  now  to  the  passage  in  Ephesians  where 
Paul  writes :  *'  According  as  He  hath  chosen  us  in 
him  before  the  foundation  of  the  world,  that  we 
should  be  holy  and  without  blame  before  Him  in 
love,  having  predestinated  us  unto  the  adoption  of 
children  by  Jesus  Christ  to  Himself  according  to  the 
good  pleasure  of  His  will  to  the  praise  and  glory  of 
His  grace."  This  passage  in  its  entirety  answers  at 
least  seven  great  questions  about  God's  plan  for 
man's  redemption.  These  questions  are:  How  old 
is  the  plan?  Who  are  included?  What  does  the 
plan  purpose  for  those  who  are  included?    How  is 


182  PREDESTINATION 

the  purpose  to  be  realized?  What  method  is  to  be 
employed?  What  motive  is  behind  it?  And  what 
goal  is  before  it? 

How  old  is  the  plan  ?  It  was  made  "  before  the 
foundation  of  the  world."  Predestination  says  that 
God  was  thinking  about  us  before  we  were  born,  be- 
fore there  was  a  race  or  a  planet,  before  sun  and 
stars  were  made,  when  all  that  He  had  to  take  into 
account  was  His  own  character.  When  as  yet  there 
was  no  wreck,  no  sin,  no  hell,  God  said :  "  I  choose 
to  have  a  family."  God  has  been  thinking  about 
man  ever  since  He  was  God.  Man  is  not  an  acci- 
dent, a  bit  of  star-dust  thrown  off  in  a  cosmos  swirl, 
an  atom  to  rot  down  in  dim  centuries.  He  has  been 
predestined.  His  being  links  back  to  an  eternal 
plan.    Let  him  respect  himself. 

Who  are  included?  "  Us."  It  is  the  first  and  not 
the  second  person  that  is  used.  Predestination  is 
not  something  to  judge  of  in  your  fellow-man,  but 
to  discover  in  yourself.  *'  Having  predestinated  us," 
— not  nations,  not  ages,  not  circumstances,  not 
forces,  but  people.  Do  not  try  to  build  a  wall 
through  the  pronoun.  If  the  wall  is  to  be  built,  let 
God  build  it,  but  do  not  get  small  and  sectarian  be- 
fore God's  great  plan.  His  heart  is  infinite.  He 
says :  "  Whosoever  will  may  come,"  and  He  has 
given  but  one  sign  to  indicate  who  are  included  in 
His  plan.  It  is  the  sign  of  entering.  He  has 
chosen  all  who  choose  Him.  This  much  we  know. 
What  more  do  we  need  to  know  ?  What  more  have 
we  a  right  to  know?  Why  should  God  fling  down 
the  secrets  of  His  eternal  councils  for  unbelievers 


DOCTRINE  OF  DIVINE  DECREES      133 

to  trample  under  foot?  I  know  that  I  am  included 
in  God's  plan  when  I  include  myself. 

What  does  the  plan  purpose  for  those  who  are 
included  ?  '*  That  they  should  be  holy  and  without 
blame  before  Him  in  love."  This  does  not  sound 
like  the  knell  of  doom.  It  is  a  summons  to  glorious 
life.  Someone  says :  '*  I  want  you  to  grow  to  be  as 
beautiful  as  you  were  when  God  thought  of  you 
first."  This  is  precisely  the  purpose  of  God's  re- 
demptive plan.  His  dream  is  a  race  "  holy  and 
blameless  before  him  in  love." 

How  is  the  plan  to  be  realized  ?  "  In  Him."  In 
Christ.  Jesus  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  plan.  The 
dream  is  to  reach  reality  in  Him.  Christ  was  not  a 
victim.  Calvary  was  not  an  accident.  The  Savior's 
sacrifice  was  eternal.  It  was  the  theme  for  discus- 
sion in  heaven  as  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  conversa- 
tion on  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration,  when  the 
spirits  discussed  with  Christ  the  decease  which  He 
was  to  accomplish.  And  so  Pilate  crucified  Christ 
according  to  the  foreknowledge  of  God,  and  the 
guarantee  from  the  beginning  was  that  Jesus  should 
**  see  of  the  travail  of  His  soul  and  be  satisfied." 

What  was  the  method  to  be  employed  ?  "  The 
adoption  of  children  "  by  Christ  Himself.  Predes- 
tination includes  the  means  as  well  as  the  end.  Into 
that  word  "  adoption  "  are  packed  all  the  processes 
of  redemption.  The  method  is  not  that  of  the  work- 
man and  the  clay,  of  the  judge  and  the  prisoner,  but 
of  the  father  and  the  child.    It  is  the  family  method. 

What  is  the  motive  behind  the  plan  ?  "  According 
to  the  good  pleasure  of  His  will."  We  can  trust  such 


134  PREDESTINATION 

a  motive.  It  is  changeless,  tireless,  tender.  God's 
plan  depends  not  on  the  steadfastness  of  my  pur- 
pose, not  on  the  value  of  my  soul,  but  on  "  the  good 
pleasure  of  his  will."  What  can  thwart  the  will  of 
God?  Predestination  declares  that  the  thing  which 
makes  God  happy  is  not  to  crush,  but  to  save.  It 
is  **  the  good  pleasure  of  his  will  "  that  we  should 
be  "  holy  and  without  blame  before  him  in  love." 

What  is  the  goal  toward  which  the  plan  moves? 
"  We  are  predestinated  to  the  praise  of  the  glory 
of  his  grace."  God's  plan  is  to  glorify  Himself, 
and  the  trait  in  Him  which  will  be  glorified  is  not 
His  wisdom.  His  power,  His  holiness;  but  His 
grace,  His  unmerited  favor.  It  is  the  fact  that  He 
takes  a  sinner  who  has  no  claim  on  Him,  and  plans 
that  he  may  be  "  holy  "  and  "  blameless."  Through 
the  ages,  God  is  vindicating  His  love.  What  an 
hour  it  will  be  when  the  redeemed  race  shall  sing  the 
great  anthem  of  salvation!  It  will  be  the  glory 
song,  the  song  that  glorifies  God's  grace.  It  begins 
to  appear  that  predestination  is  not  so  infamous  a 
doctrine  as  some  have  seemed  to  think. 

We  turn  now  to  the  passage  in  Romans,  which 
is  perhaps  the  strongest  predestination  passage  in 
the  Bible.  There  are  two  things  of  special  impor- 
tance that  it  reveals  concerning  predestination.  The 
first  is  the  doctrines  with  which  it  is  associated,  and 
the  second  is  the  statements  of  the  context. 

Just  as  we  can  judge  of  people,  so  can  we  of  doc- 
trines, by  the  company  they  keep.  Predestination  in 
Romans  is  associated  with  the  sublimest  doctrines, 
**  for    whom    he    did    predestinate,    them    he    also 


DOCTRINE  OF  DIVINE  DECREES      135 

called,  and  whom  he  called,  them  he  also  justified, 
and  whom  he  justified,  them  he  also  glorified."  Fore- 
knowledge, calling,  justification,  glorification,  and  in 
the  midst  of  them,  predestination;  and  predestina- 
tion not  merely  associated  with  them,  but  as  the  tie 
that  binds  them  together. 

The  context  to  all  this  is  the  strongest  passage  in 
the  Bible  on  God's  inseparable  love.  "  What  shall 
we  say  to  these  things  ? "  Paul  asks.  "  Shall  we  be 
discouraged?  Shall  we  be  afraid?  Never.  If  God 
be  for  us,  who  can  be  against  us  ? "  And  then  Paul 
begins  a  riot  of  holy  joy  which  does  not  stop  until 
he  falls  breathless  and  exhausted  on  the  steps  of  the 
throne  in  the  very  blaze  of  God's  undying  love.  "  I 
am  persuaded  that  neither  death,  nor  life,  nor 
angels,  nor  principalities,  nor  powers,  nor  things 
to  come,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  crea- 
ture, shall  be  able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of 
God  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord." 

The  Bible's  strongest  statement  of  predestination, 
and  also  its  strongest  statement  of  divine  love,  are 
placed  side  by  side,  and  the  two  are  joined  together 
with  the  question :  "  What  shall  we  then  say  to  these 
things  ?  "  Predestination  there,  and  inseparable  love 
here.  What  shall  we  say  to  predestination?  In- 
separable love.  The  best  thing  that  can  befall  the 
world  is  the  accomplishment  of  God's  will.  His  plan 
is  wisest.  His  purpose  is  the  most  beneficent.  Pre- 
destination means  that  the  will  of  the  Lord  will  be 
done,  for  omnipotence  is  behind  it.  God's  plan  will 
certainly  be  carried  out  sooner  or  later.  Delays  are 
not  defeats  with  God.     Individuals  may  reject  His 


136  PREDESTINATION 

plan,  but  they  cannot  thwart  His  purposes.     His- 
tory's pages  but  record: 

"One  death  grapple  in  the  darkness 
'Twixt  old  systems  and  the  word, 
Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold, 
Wrong  forever  on  the  throne, 
Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  future 
And  behind  the  dim  unknown 
Standeth  God  within  the  shadow 
Keeping  watch  above  His  own." 

Such  is  the  Bible  doctrine  of  predestination.  God 
has  a  will  about  the  world.  His  will  is  what  it 
has  always  been.  It  is  the  expression  of  His  love. 
Its  accomplishment  is  the  best  that  can  befall  the 
world,  and  its  accomplishment  is  sure.  Predestina- 
tion is  not  a  doctrine  to  defend,  but  to  proclaim.  It 
is  a  creed  to  shout  from  the  housetops. 

CONCLUSION 

Predestination  is  the  bulwark  of  individualism. 
The  convictions  it  creates  are  basic  in  every  battle 
for  the  rights  of  man,  as  against  the  clamor  and 
insolence  of  crowds.  It  is  the  most  transcendent 
doctrine  ever  formulated  of  the  worth  of  a  man.  If, 
from  all  eternity,  God  has  singled  the  individual  out 
of  the  crowd  and  planned  and  toiled  for  his  redemp- 
tion, and  said  to  all  the  forces  that  would  ignore  and 
oppress  and  trample  him :  "  Stand  aside ;  I  have 
chosen  him ! ",  then  whatever  may  be  his  station  or 
degree,  he  takes  on  a  worth  that  is  imperishable,  and 
is  invested  with  a  dignity  that  is  immortal.  It  is 
not  strange,  therefore,  that  the  people  who  through 


DOCTRINE  OF  DIVINE  DECREES     137 

the  centuries  have  fought  the  wars  for  human  rights 
have  had  predestination  in  their  creed. 

It  is  the  doctrine  at  the  heart  of  Christian  as- 
surance. I  am  confident  of  my  salvation,  not  be- 
cause I  deserve  it,  or  can  earn  it,  or  can  achieve  it, 
or  can  ever  suffer  enough  to  obtain  it,  but  because 
I  am  persuaded  that  He  Who  has  begun  a  good  work 
in  me  will  not  leave  His  work  half  finished. 

Predestination  is  a  doctrine  for  people  who  have 
already  been  saved.  As  long  as  one  is  unsaved,  the 
gospel  says :  "  Whosoever  will  may  come,"  but 
after  he  has  come,  what  a  joy  to  find  that  he  was 
expected,  that  he  would  always  have  been  missed 
had  he  failed  to  come!  One  must  get  inside  the 
church  to  discover  the  beauty  of  a  stained  glass  win- 
dow. So  is  it  with  God*s  plan.  Get  inside,  and  feel 
His  everlasting  arms  about  you,  and  the  decrees 
will  not  trouble  you.    They  will  comfort  you. 

From  first  to  last,  it  is  everywhere  and  always  a 
predestination  to  privilege.  The  decrees  do  not  im- 
poverish, but  enrich.  Instead  of  destroying,  pre- 
destination recovers  and  establishes  God's  kingdom 
and  character.  It  substitutes  the  motives  of  divine 
love  for  those  of  sin.  There  is  no  freedom  so  great 
as  the  freedom  to  do  right. 

In  carrying  out  His  beneficent  plans  and  accom- 
plishing His  holy  purposes,  God  lays  under  tribute 
earth  and  heaven,  nations  and.  individuals,  nature 
and  grace,  time  and  eternity.  In  one  place  we  are 
told  that  "  the  times  were  shortened  for  the  elects* 
sake."  High  up  above  all  that  transpires,  this 
glorious   doctrine   soars,    proclaiming   its   victorious 


138  PREDESTINATION 

ascendancy  over  chance  and  fate,  and  cheering  God's 
people  in  battle,  discipline,  and  service  with  that 
topmost  promise  of  grace :  "All  things  work  together 
for  good  to  them  that  love  God,  to  them  who  are 
the  called  according  to  his  purpose/' 

Predestination  pushes  Godward  with  the  destiny 
of  the  human  race  in  its  keeping.  The  will  of  God 
is  the  hope  of  the  world.  God's  face  is  against  sin. 
He  is  always  found  fighting  on  the  side  of  man's 
highest  good  and  best  happiness.  Our  only  hope  of 
some  day  coming  off  conquerors  and  more  than  con- 
querors is  that  we  have  a  God  Whose  will  is  omnipo- 
tent, Whose  eye  never  sleeps,  Whose  arm  never 
grows  weary,  and  Whose  great,  loving  heart  has  de- 
termined that  His  people  shall  at  last  be  victors. 

"I  say  to  thee  do  thou  repeat, 
To  the  first  man  whom  thou  mayst  meet 
In  lane,  highway,  or  open  street. 

That  he  and  we  and  all  men  move 

Under  a  canopy  of  love 

As  broad  as  the  blue  sky  above. 

That  doubt  and  trouble,  fear  and  pain, 
And  anguish  all  are  shadows  vain, 
That  death  itself  shall  not  remain. 

That  weary  deserts  we  may  tread, 
A  dreary  labyrinth  may  thread. 
Through  dark  ways  under  ground  be  led, 

Yet  if  we  will  one  guide  obey, 
The  dreariest  path,  the  darkest  way 
Shall  issue  out  in  heavenly  day. 

And  we  on  divers  shores  now  cast 
Shall  meet,  our  perilous  voyage  past, 
All  in  our  Father's  house  at  last," 


VIII 

INSEPARABLE    LOVE— PAUL*S    DOCTRINE 
OF  ASSURANCE 


"Who  shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ?  Shall 
tribulation,  or  distress,  or  persecution,  or  famine,  or  naked- 
ness, or  peril,  or  sword?  As  it  is  written,  For  thy  sake 
we  are  killed  all  the  day  long;  we  are  accounted  as  sheep 
for  the  slaughter.  Nay,  in  all  these  things  we  are  more 
than  conquerors  through  him  that  loved  us.  For  I  am 
persuaded  that  neither  death,  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  prin- 
cipalities, nor  powers,  nor  things  present,  nor  things  to 
come,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature,  shall 
be  able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in 
Christ  Jesus  our  Lord."— Romans  8 :  35-39. 


VIII 

INSEPARABLE    LOVE— PAUL'S    DOCTRINE 
OF  ASSURANCE 

THE  closing  lines  of  the  eighth  chapter  of 
Romans  contain  the  greatest  climax  of  the 
greatest  apostle  in  his  greatest  book.  It  is 
the  sublimest  thing  Paul  ever  wrote.  He  did  not 
regard  himself  as  the  greatest  apostle,  nor  even  as 
worthy  of  being  called  an  apostle,  but  the  world 
would  give  him  the  first  place,  and  rank  him  at  the 
top  of  all  those  who  have  served  under  Christ.  He 
wrote  thirteen,  possibly  fourteen,  of  the  twenty- 
seven  books  of  the  New  Testament.  All  his  epistles 
are  strong,  clear,  convincing  discussions  of  the  truths 
of  Christianity;  but  if  the  church  were  to  vote  on 
the  question,  it  would  probably  elect  the  epistle  to 
the  Romans  as  Paul's  greatest  literary  production. 
In  the  book  there  are  many  passages  to  fill  us  with 
admiration  for  the  richness  of  Paul's  style  and  the 
clearness  and  depth  of  his  thought,  and  with  amaze- 
ment at  the  boundless  sweep  of  his  spiritual  vision. 
There  is  nothing,  however,  greater  than  the  trium- 
phant declaration  of  divine  assurance  with  which  he 
closes  the  eighth  chapter.  It  comes  in  the  center 
of  the  book.  There  are  sixteen  chapters,  and  this 
is  at  the  close  of  the  eighth.  It  is  as  though  every- 
thing else  in  the  book  sloped  up  toward  this  as 
141 


142  INSEPARABLE  L0\:E 

toward  a  sublime  summit  peak,  where  the  greatest 
mind  of  the  Christian  church  in  his  moment  of 
holiest  inspiration  uttered  his  sublimest  message. 
There  with  the  thorn  digging  into  his  flesh,  with  his 
body  scarred  with  the  marks  of  the  cross,  with  the 
print  of  the  nails  and  the  wound  of  the  spear,  with 
his  face  transfigured  with  the  passion  of  Calvary,  the 
*'  servant  of  Jesus  Christ  "  speaks  his  soul  and  says : 
"  I  am  persuaded  that  neither  death,  nor  life,  nor 
angels,  nor  principalities,  nor  powers,  nor  things 
present,  nor  things  to  come,  nor  height  nor  depth, 
nor  any  other  creature,  shall  be  able  to  separate  us 
from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord!" 

THE   LOGIC   OF   IT 

How  did  Paul  come  to  say  it?  A  man  cannot 
write  a  thing  like  this  offhand.  Such  things  do  not 
drip  from  the  end  of  a  pen  behind  which  sits  pam- 
pered ease  or  stolid  mediocrit>%  or  even  undevout 
genius.  There  are  plenty  of  people  who  might  equal 
Paul's  vocabulary  and  match  his  diction  and  measure 
up  to  his  literary  style ;  but  how  to  make  words  say 
things — ^that  is  the  rub.  Paul  knew  how  to  harness 
words  to  ideas.  He  knew  more.  He  knew  how  to 
make  words  windows  through  which  to  show  men 
the  invisible.  How  does  he  do  it?  What  is  behind 
this  incomparable  passage  on  the  love  of  God? 

There  is  first  a  matchless  chain  of  logic  forged 
link  by  link,  from  premise  to  conclusion,  so  that 
with  a  premise  which  cannot  be  denied,  one  is  tied 
to  a  conclusion  from  which  there  is  no  escape.    In 


PAUL'S  DOCTRIXE  OF  ASSURANCE     143 

this  process  of  reasoning,  Paul  develops  two  main 
lines  of  thought. 

He  tracks  God's  eternal  purpose  into  the  shadows 
of  the  infinite.  He  works  his  way  back  into  the 
realm  "  before  the  world  was,''  and  shows  how  the 
will  of  God  has  always  been  an  expression  of  His 
love.  He  follows  with  a  logic  that  is  as  fearless  as 
it  is  devout  the  path  of  divine  foreordination,  often- 
times where  the  darkness  is  blinding  and  the  mystery 
baffling,  until  at  last  he  emerges  on  the  everlasting 
hills,  where  the  sun  shines  and  faith  cries :  **  We 
know  that  all  things  work  together  for  good  to  them 
that  love  God,  to  them  who  are  the  called  according 
to  his  purpose !  " 

Then  he  pushes  through  the  maze  of  things  to  a 
cross  where  God's  Son  is  slain  from  the  foundation 
of  the  world,  and  there  he  stays  until  he  sees  what 
it  means,  imtil  he  sees  the  veil  over  the  holy  of 
holies  rent  and  the  mists  Hft  and  the  skies  clear: 
until  he  beholds  nail-pierced  hands  tear  away  from 
God's  face  the  disguises  woven  across  it  by  our 
sins,  and  until  over  the  arm  of  the  cross  he  sees 
eternal  love  shining  in  God's  face,  and  hears  the 
voice  which  says :  '*  He  that  spared  not  his  own  Son, 
but  delivered  him  up  for  us  all,  how  shall  he  not 
with  him  also  freely  give  us  all  things  ?  " 

Then  as  Paul  sees  where  the  track  of  the  eternal 
decrees  leads,  and  as  he  beholds  the  \-ision  of  Cal- 
vary, he  finds  that  they  both  have  the  same  story  to 
tell. — the  story  of  a  God  Wliose  love  has  never 
wavered.  Then  it  is  that  he  begins  to  ask :  "  \\*ho 
shall  separate  us   from  the  love  of  Christ?     Shall 


lU  INSEPARABLE  LOVE 

tribulation,  or  distress,  or  persecution,  or  famine,  or 
nakedness,  or  peril,  or  sword  ?  "  There  is  no  escape 
from  the  logic  of  that  hour,  and  in  an  ecstasy  of 
assurance,  Christ's  servant  abandons  himself  to  the 
glory  of  his  conclusion :  '*  Nay,  in  all  these  things 
we  are  more  than  conquerors  through  him  that 
loved  us." 

And  so  Paul  wrote  this  passage  on  inseparable 
love  because  he  had  a  mind  great  enough  to  trace 
God  to  His  eternal  council  chamber,  and  a  faith 
keen  enough  to  see  the  lights  that  flame  on  the  ever- 
lasting hills.  It  takes  brains  to  write  a  thing  like 
the  closing  lines  of  this  victory  chapter  of  the 
Bible.  Let  the  midget  minds  which  are  wont  to 
criticize  all  they  cannot  pack  into  the  kit  of  their 
appetites  tarry  in  the  presence  of  a  master  mind  and 
learn  something  about  God.  Let  the  decrepit  men- 
tality that  deludes  itself  with  a  notion  that  there  is 
intellectual  prowess  only  in  doubt,  come  under  the 
spell  of  the  mind  of  a  man  who  could  think,  but 
whose  glory  is  his  faith  and  whose  message  is  God's 
love! 

This  is  the  first  thing  behind  the  passage, — a  logic 
unanswerable.  Nothing  can  separate  us  from  God's 
love  because  foreordination  has  decreed  and  Cal- 
vary has  revealed  God's  changeless,  tireless  love. 
There  is,  however,  more  here  than  the  conclusion 
of  a  great  mind.  If  Paul  had  been  nothing  but  intel- 
lect, he  would  never  have  written  these  lines.  It 
takes  brains  to  write  a  thing  like  this,  but  it  takes 
more  than  brains;  it  takes  life.  We  can  feel  the 
heart-throb  and  the  life-beat  in  this  passage. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  ASSURANCE     145 


THE  EXPERIENCE  OF  IT 

"  Christ's  servant "  came  upon  this  great  truth  as 
the  result  of  a  Hfe  experience.  Before  he  could  say 
that  these  things  could  not  separate,  he  had  to  expe- 
rience them,  and  he  did. 

Before  he  could  say  that  death  cannot  separate,  he 
had  to  die,  and  he  did.  He  said :  "  I  die  daily."  He 
could  say :  "I  am  dead  and  my  life  is  hid  with 
Christ  in  God."  Paul  let  death  embrace  him,  put  its 
hands  upon  him,  lay  its  cold  and  clammy  touch  upon 
his  soul,  sepulture  his  happiness.  Then  he  climbed 
out  of  the  coffin  and  shook  off  the  grave  clothes  and 
cried :  **  Death  cannot  separate  us  from  God's 
love!" 

Before  he  could  say  that  life  cannot  separate  us, 
he  had  to  live,  and  he  did.  He  lived  a  full  life.  His 
cup  brimmed  to  the  lip.  He  was  a  man  of  the 
world.  He  knew  its  temptations,  its  allurements,  its 
pleasures,  its  powers,  its  honors.  He  held  them  all 
in  the  hollow  of  his  hand  and  threw  them  away  as 
he  said :  "  Life  cannot  separate  us  from  the  love  of 
God." 

Before  he  could  say  that  angels  cannot  separate, 
he  had  to  match  himself  against  celestial  powers,  and 
he  did.  He  wrestled  not  against  flesh  and  blood, 
but  against  principalities,  against  the  powers  of  the 
air,  against  the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world. 
But  they  could  not  break  nor  bend  him.  They  could 
not  terrify  his  great  soul  nor  shake  his  confidence, 
and  he  came  out  of  the  fight  holding  on  to  the  love 
of  God. 


146  INSEPARABLE  LOVE 

Before  he  could  say  things  present  and  things  to 
come  cannot  separate,  he  had  to  sweep  life's  gamut 
with  his  experience,  and  he  did.  He  was  caught  up 
and  saw  things  which  it  is  not  lawful  to  utter.  He 
explored  the  universe,  but  he  came  back  from  his 
above-earth  adventures  saying :  "  There  is  nothing 
up  there  or  out  there  that  can  ever  separate  us  from 
the  love  of  God." 

Paul  paid  a  tremendous  price  to  be  able  to  write 
down  this  conviction.  Read  the  story  of  his  suffer- 
ings and  privations,  his  persecutions  and  shipwrecks. 
It  was  all  a  part  of  the  price.  The  reason  some 
people  have  nothing  to  say  is  that  they  have  no  ex- 
perience. When  we  talk  merely  from  the  head,  we 
soon  go  dumb.  It  is  life  that  is  eloquent.  The  rea- 
son men  utter  such  cheap  and  stale  bromides  about 
God  is  that  they  have  no  experience  of  Him.  They 
must  pay  the  price.  Then  the  gates  of  light  will 
swing  wide,  and  words  charged  with  glory  like  a 
cloud  shot  through  with  sun-set  fire  will  proclaim 
the  beauty  of  the  Lord. 

These  are  the  things  which  go  security  for  the  fact 
of  the  inseparable  love  of  God, — a  logic  that  cannot 
be  refuted  and  a  life  that  cannot  be  answered.  This 
is  how  Paul  wrote  his  greatest  cHmax.  He  had  a 
mind  fine  enough  to  think  God  and  a  faith  genuine 
enough  to  live  God.  He  discovered  God  in  His  most 
stupendous  revelations;  and  then  he  lived  a  life  in 
which  the  logic  of  his  convictions  was  wrought  into 
the  character  of  his  experience,  until  at  last  his 
great  heart  could  keep  its  secret  no  longer.  His  lips 
could  stay  dumb  no  more.    And  with  a  voice  whose 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  ASSURANCE     147 

tones  are  like  the  music  of  a  harp,  the  great  apostle 
chants  the  measures  of  his  mighty  faith. 

THE  REALITY   OF   IT 

Let  us,  however,  not  become  so  absorbed  with 
wondering  how  he  wrote  it  as  to  be  unmindful  of 
what  he  wrote.  Nothing  can  separate  us  from  the 
love  of  God.  Nothing!  Absolutely  nothing!  No 
power  in  heaven  or  in  earth  or  in  sea;  no  age,  no 
decree,  no  accident,  no  calamity ;  nothing  outside 
ourselves,  nothing  inside  ourselves ;  no  sin,  no  pit  of 
degradation,  no  devil,  no  lake  of  fire,  no  wall  of 
darkness,  nothing  that  ever  existed  or  will  ever 
exist,  in  this  or  any  world,  can  ever  make  God  stop 
loving  us,  can  ever  **  separate  us  from  the  love  of 
God  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord.'* 

What  can  be  better  than  this?  Is  not  this  gospel 
enough?  Could  there  be  any  gladder  news,  any 
higher  truth?  Let  the  imagination  try  to  conceive 
of  anything  better.  Let  fancy  take  its  wildest  flight, 
and  return  and  tell  us  if  anywhere  it  can  find  the 
suggestion  of  anything  more  precious  than  the  in- 
separable love  of  God.  This  is  Paul's  great  affirma- 
tion. It  is  not  a  surmise.  It  is  not  a  dream,  a  hope, 
a  great  perhaps.  He  says  it  in  the  greatest  and 
straightest  and  strongest  way  that  language  can 
speak. 

If  man  could  but  accept  it,  he  would  hold  out 
against  God  no  longer.  He  would  surrender.  He 
would  say :  "  Here,  Lord,  I  yield,  for  love  has  con- 
quered." Indeed,  when  one  has  discovered  this  love, 
he  is  saved.     "  The  great  transaction's  done."     So 


148  INSEPARABLE  LOVE 

soon  as  the  sun  rises,  it  is  day.  And  so  soon  as  the 
light  of  God's  love  shines  into  a  human  soul,  salva- 
tion has  come. 

Some  will  question  and  say :  "  How  can  God  love 
us  when  things  in  the  world  are  as  they  are?  Why 
is  sin  here,  and  trouble,  and  so  much  sorrow  ? " 
That  is  what  a  girl  mother  said  to  me  one  day,  as 
she  lifted  a  pallid,  sickly  baby  from  the  floor  and 
took  me  in  to  see  her  mother,  who  for  eighteen  years 
had  been  dying  of  creeping  paralysis,  and  whose 
limbs  had  atrophied,  and  whose  body  had  shriveled 
up  into  a  little  crumpled,  helpless  pile  of  humanity 
that  lay  there  on  the  bed.  How  could  all  this  happen 
if  God  loves  us?  This  is  the  nightmare  of  faith. 
Look  at  the  libertine.  Is  he  not  separated  from 
God's  love?  Look  at  the  criminal.  Is  he  not  sepa- 
rated? Look  at  the  infidel  and  the  grafter  and  the 
hypocrite.  Try  again,  Paul.  The  facts  are  against 
you.  You  are  too  much  of  an  enthusiast.  How  can 
you  say  that  nothing  can  separate  us  from  the  love 
of  God,  when  all  this  is  going  on? 

But  he  does  say  it,  and  this  is  the  glory  of  it.  He 
does  not  say  that  there  is  no  death,  and  therefore 
no  separation;  but  that  death  is  here,  and  that, 
despite  all  that  it  can  do,  there  is  no  separation.  He 
does  not  say  that  there  is  no  temptation,  no  conflict. 
He  feels  the  struggle,  he  sees  the  grim  face  of  the 
foe.  He  hears  the  roar  of  the  cataract,  the  flame 
of  the  furnace.  He  is  no  blind  fanatic,  but  sane  and 
in  his  right  mind.  He  stares  all  the  horrors  of 
existence  full  in  the  face  and  says :  **  There  they  are, 
but  they  cannot  separate  you,  they  cannot  make  God 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  ASSURANCE     149 

stop  loving  you,  they  cannot  kill  that  love  nor  drive 
it  from  the  field." 

The  doubt  which  assails  this  faith  is  false.  The 
hard  things  of  life  are  no  proof  that  God  has 
stopped  loving  us ;  they  may  be  that  we  have  stopped 
loving  God,  It  is  not  our  love  for  God  but  His  for 
us  that  is  inseparable.  What  shall  we  say  of  a 
mother  whose  wayward  son  sins  against  her  love? 
He  has  broken  her  health  and  her  heart.  He  has 
emptied  the  home  of  joy  and  is  plunging  down  to 
hell.  Shall  we  conclude  that  the  mother  has  stopped 
loving 'her  son?  He  may  not  care  for  her,  but  she 
would  still  die  for  him. 

This  is  the  story  of  God's  great  heart.  That  liber- 
tine is  not  separated  from  the  love  of  God.  God 
still  loves  him.  That  criminal  is  not  separated.  That 
prodigal  is  not  separated.  God  has  not  changed. 
Our  wills  and  purposes  have  changed,  our  habits  and 
loves  have  altered;  but  God's  love  glows  like  an 
unspent  sun.  No  night  can  darken  it,  no  time  can 
tire  it,  no  neglect  can  wither  it,  no  folly  can  shame 
it.  It  is  watching  and  waiting  until  the  hour  when 
we  shall  see  the  shame  of  sin  and  the  folly  of  diso- 
bedience, and,  coming  to  ourselves,  shall  arise  from 
our  vile  habits  and  shake  off  the  slavery  of  lust,  and 
with  a  sob  that  is  half  prayer,  half  song  say :  "  I 
will  go  to  my  Father ! " 

We  need  not  be  afraid  of  God.  We  must  not 
grieve  Him  nor  disappoint  Him;  but  we  need  not 
be  afraid  to  let  God's  love  have  its  way.  It  will  not 
harm  us,  nor  cheat  us,  nor  fail  us.  It  will  make 
the  storm  a  calm,  and  will  bring  us  to  the  desired 


150  INSEPARABLE  LOVE 

haven.  If  we  have  been  tempted  to  doubt.  let  us 
return  to  this  great  faith.  If  because  of  death  or 
Hfe  or  circumstances,  or  things  present  or  things 
to  come,  we  have  been  tempted  to  say  that  no  one 
cares,  let  us  return  to  this  great  faith  in  a  love  from 
which  nothing  can  separate  us.  Sinking  down  in  the 
strong  arms  of  that  love,  and  looking  up  into  the 
face  that  is  ever  full  of  an  unwearied  tenderness,  let 
my  soul  say  to  its  Lover :  "  O,  God,  I  am  not  afraid 
of  You!" 


IX 

THE  POTTER  AND  THE  CLAY— PAUL'S 
DOCTRINE  OF  GOD'S  WORK 


"For  he  said  to  Moses,  I  will  have  mercy  on  whom  I 
will  have  mercy,  and  I  will  have  compassion  on  whom  I 
will  have  compassion. 

So  then  it  is  not  of  him  that  willeth,  nor  of  him  that 
runneth,  but  of  God  that  sheweth  mercy. 

For  the  Scripture  said  unto  Pharaoh,  Even  for  this  same 
purpose  have  I  raised  thee  up,  that  I  might  shew  my  power 
in  thee,  and  that  my  name  might  be  declared  throughout 
all  the  earth. 

Therefore  hath  he  mercy  on  whom  he  will  have  mercy, 
and  whom  he  will  he  hardeneth. 

Thou  wilt  say  then  unto  me,  Why  doth  he  yet  find  fault? 
For  who  hath  resisted  his  will? 

Nay,  but,  O  man,  who  art  thou  that  repliest  against  God? 
Shall  the  thing  formed  say  to  him  that  formed  it,  Why 
hast  thou  made  me  thus? 

Hath  not  the  potter  power  over  the  clay,  of  the  same 
lump  to  make  one  vessel  unto  honour,  and  another  unto 
dishonour  ? 

What  if  God,  willing  to  shew  his  wrath,  and  to  make  his 
power  known,  endured  with  much  long-suffering  the  ves- 
sels of  wrath  fitted  to  destruction: 

And  that  he  might  make  known  the  riches  of  his  glory 
on  the  vessels  of  mercy,  which  he  had  afore  prepared  unto 
glory, 

Even  us,  whom  he  hath  called,  not  of  the  Jews  only,  but 
also  of  the  Gentiles  ?  "—Romans  9: 15-24. 


IX 

THE  POTTER  AND  THE  CLAY— PAUL'S 
DOCTRINE  OF  GOD'S  WORK 

YOU  have  seen  Niagara.  You  have  seen  the 
river  above  the  falls,  broad  and  strong  and 
swift  and  shining  in  the  sun.  And  then  you 
have  seen  the  river  take  its  mighty  leap  over  the 
falls  into  the  gleaming  pool,  and  go  roaring  and 
shouting  and  fighting  its  boisterous  and  belligerent 
v^^ay  down  the  gorge  and  through  the  rapids. 

The  eighth  chapter  of  Romans  is  like  the  river 
above  the  falls;  strong  and  broad  and  shining  with 
the  changeless  love  of  God;  and  the  ninth  chapter 
is  like  the  river  below  the  falls ;  full  of  stormy  argu- 
ment and  of  the  shock  of  contending  ideas.  The 
eighth  chapter  is  the  victory  chapter  of  the  Bible; 
we  might  call  the  ninth  the  battle  chapter.  It  opens 
with  a  challenge :  "  I  say  the  truth  in  Christ ;  I  lie 
not.'*  Paul  has  on  his  fighting  mood.  He  is  about 
to  attack  one  of  the  darkest  and  most  difficult  prob- 
lems in  connection  with  our  thought  of  God.  He 
plunges  into  it  straight  from  his  ascription  to  God's 
inseparable  love.  With  that  portrait  of  God  before 
him,  he  is  afraid  of  nothing.  No  problem  can  daunt 
him,  and  no  mystery  can  scare  him.  He  admits  at 
once  the  seriousness  of  the  question.    When  he  asks : 

153 


154.       THE  POTTER  AND  THE  CLAY 

"  Hath  not  the  potter  power  over  the  clay,  of  the 
same  lump  to  make  one  vessel  unto  honour 
and  another  unto  dishonour  ? "  he  means  to  affirm 
in  the  most  emphatic  way  that  God  has  the 
power. 

Once  I  was  talking  to  an  old  minister  who  had 
just  preached  on  "  The  Eternal  Counsel  and  Fore- 
knowledge of  God  "  more  to  the  mystification  than 
to  the  edification  of  at  least  one  of  his  hearers.  Lay- 
ing his  hand  on  my  shoulder,  he  said :  "  I  do  so  love 
to  preach  on  the  deep  things  of  God  that  nobody 
can  understand."  In  the  ninth  chapter  of  Romans 
we  are  soon  beyond  our  depth.  As  we  read  these 
verses,  we  are  forcibly  reminded  of  Peter's  remark 
when  he  said :  '*  Even  as  our  beloved  Paul  also  ac- 
cording to  the  wisdom  given  unto  him  hath  written 
unto  you ;  as  also  in  all  his  epistles,  speaking  in  them 
of  these  things;  in  which  are  some  things  hard  to 
be  understood,  which  they  that  are  unlearned  and 
unstable  wrest,  as  they  do  also  the  other  Scriptures, 
unto  their  own  destruction."  ^ 

We  must  confess  that  there  is  much  in  the  ninth 
chapter  of  Romans  that  we  do  not  understand. 
There  are  vast  stretches  we  cannot  climb.  There  are 
peaks  which  lose  themselves  in  the  eternal  blue. 
Nevertheless,  this  passage  was  written  out  of  the  ex- 
perience of  one  of  God's  saints,  and,  like  other  Scrip- 
ture, is  given  by  inspiration,  and  must  be  profitable, 
that  Christ's  servant  may  be  thoroughly  furnished 
for  his  work.  While  this  does  not  take  the  mystery 
from  it,  it  should  the  fear. 

*  2  Peter  3 :  15-16. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD'S  WORK    155 


THE   FEAR 

The  fear  which  this  passage  creates  is  that  of  a 
dumb  despair.  "  Hath  not  the  potter  power  over  the 
clay,  of  the  same  lump  to  make  one  vessel  unto 
honour  and  another  unto  dishonour?"  Then  why 
continue  to  struggle  ?  It  seems  to  proclaim  the  creed 
of  fatalism.  The  fear  which  creeps  in  Hke  a  bleak 
December  blast  is  that  an  arbitrary  God  is  in  con- 
trol of  human  life,  and  that  He  holds  all  in  the  re- 
lentless grasp  of  a  fixed  and  fatalistic  decree,  and 
shapes  us  to  His  whims,  regardless  of  our  prayers 
and  needs.  It  is  the  horror  of  that  paralysis  that 
falls  upon  the  soul  which  feels  itself  in  the  grip  of 
a  force  which  nothing  can  withstand,  from  which 
nothing  has  a  right  to  hope,  and  against  whose  all- 
powerful  persuasion  struggle  is  insanity. 

It  is  the  fear  which  has  dogged  the  steps  of  the 
race  from  the  beginning,  and  which  has  enthroned 
itself  on  the  altar  of  well-nigh  every  false  religion. 
The  Ethnic  faiths  of  the  East  are  fatalistic.  A 
friend  who  had  just  returned  from  a  trip  through 
India  told  me  that  the  thing  which  most  deeply  im- 
pressed him  was  the  expression  of  dismal  hopeless- 
ness in  the  faces  of  the  people.  There  was  no  light- 
heartedness,  no  merry  laughter  of  childhood,  no 
gayety,  no  jubilant  songs;  but  everywhere  a  look  of 
dumb  despair.  It  is  the  countenance  of  a  race  on 
whom  fatalism  has  stamped  its  awful  horror. 

Sometimes  Christianity  has  been  thought  to  lend 
itself  to  this  same  horror,  to  present  for  worship  a 
God  Whose  sway  is  so  absolute.  Whose  decree  is  so 


156   THE  POTTER  AND  THE  CLAY 

unyielding,  and  Whose  plan  is  so  arbitrary,  as  prac- 
tically to  make  impossible  human  freedom,  and  to 
reduce  the  soul  to  the  level  of  a  thing.  It  is  this 
fear  which  casts  its  shadow  in  the  ninth  chapter  of 
Romans.  It  tells  us  that  God  ''  will  have  mercy  on 
whom  he  will  have  mercy,"  and  that  He  "  will  have 
compassion  on  whom  he  will  have  compassion." 
Destiny  is  merely  the  whim  of  the  Deity.  We  fancy 
we  are  shaping  our  ends.  We  struggle  and  endure 
and  resist;  we  climb  and  contend  and  battle  on;  but 
it  is  all  a  pleasant  delusion.  Everything  has  been 
fixed  by  an  arbitrary  decree  of  the  Eternal,  and  our 
struggles  are  but  the  blind  battenings  of  a  fly  beat- 
ing out  its  wings  against  the  window-pane  of  fate. 
It  tells  us  that  "  it  is  not  of  him  that  willeth,  nor 
of  him  that  runneth,  but  of  God  that  sheweth 
mercy."  We  talk  of  will-power.  We  bluster  and 
storm  and  say: 

"  Nor  fate,  nor  circumstance,  nor  chance 
Can  circumvent  or  hinder  or  control 
The  firm  resolve  of  a  determined  soul", 

but  what  of  it?  It  is  all  a  harmless  pantomime. 
Our  will  effects  nothing.  Around  us  and  above  us 
and  within  us  are  forces  and  influences  created  by 
that  which  is  outside  of  ourselves,  which  hold  the 
will  in  a  vise,  so  that  what  we  will  is  determined  for 
us  as  certainly  as  a  change  of  seasons  for  nature. 
We  talk  of  running,  and  wear  ourselves  out,  and 
grow  breathless  in  the  chase,  but  we  are  like  a  child 
who  races  up  and  down  the  aisle  of  an  express  train 
and  imagines  he  is  carrying  the  train  to  its  destina- 
tion. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD'S  WORK    157 

''  The  Scripture  saith  unto  Pharaoh,  Even  for  this 
same  purpose  have  I  raised  thee  up,  that  I  might 
shew  my  power  in  thee,  and  that  my  name  might 
be  declared  throughout  all  the  earth."  The  old  king 
thought  he  was  running  Egypt,  but  he  was  mis- 
taken. He  was  but  dough  in  the  hands  of  fate,  but 
a  pawn  on  the  chess-board  of  destiny.  He  was 
doing  what  the  force  which  rules  the  world  had 
determined  he  should  do.  We  are  all  like  Pharaoh. 
We  are  doing  things,  we  are  running  worlds,  we  are 
all  being  kings,  presidents,  potentates,  soldiers,  and 
we  are  shaping  human  history.  We  are  doing  noth- 
ing of  the  sort.  God  is  running  the  world  according 
to  His  own  ideas,  and  ''  He  will  have  mercy  on 
whom  he  will  have  mercy,  and  whom  he  will  he 
hardeneth."  Such  are  some  of  the  things  which  this 
passage  of  Scripture  seems  to  say. 

If  all  this  be  true,  why  struggle  on  ?  Why  keep  up 
the  silly  pantomime?  If  this  be  true,  what  right  has 
this  arbitrary  God  to  find  fault  with  our  failures  and 
shortcomings?  He  is  responsible,  not  we.  Shall 
He  Who  formed  us  say  to  the  thing  He  has  formed : 
"  Why  art  thou  thus?  "  Let  Him  ask  Himself  that 
question,  for  it  is  He  that  hath  made  us,  and  not 
we  ourselves. 

Yonder  is  one  who  has  never  accepted  Christ. 
He  has  heard  the  gospel  message,  but  he  has  never 
yielded  to  its  sweet  persuasions.  His  stubborn  will 
has  held  out  against  the  overtures  of  love.  But  do 
not  blame  him.  He  cannot  help  himself.  "  It  is  not 
of  him  that  willeth." 

Yonder  is  a  Christian,  cold,  indifferent,  irrespon- 


158        THE  POTTER  AND  THE  CLAY 

sive,  inactive,  dwarfed,  and  stunted,  backsliding  and 
tumbling  down,  a  reproach  to  the  church  and  a 
stumbling-block  in  the  way  of  those  who  would  come 
to  the  cross.  But  do  not  blame  him.  "  Hath  not 
the  potter  power  over  the  clay  of  the  same  lump  to 
make  one  vessel  unto  honour  and  another  unto  dis- 
honour ?  " 

There  is  some  victim  of  vice,  a  degenerate,  an  alco- 
holic, a  drug  victim,  a  black  sheep,  stained,  con- 
demned, discredited,  despised.  But  do  not  blame 
him.  He  cannot  help  himself.  He  is  like  Pharaoh. 
For  this  very  purpose  has  God  raised  him  up,  that 
He  might  show  His  power  in  him. 

Yonder  is  a  murderer,  a  thief,  an  anarchist,  an 
enemy  of  society.  The  penalty  is  pronounced  and 
the  punishment  is  inflicted.  But  why?  If  one  is 
brutal  and  dishonest,  it  is  because  he  was  made  that 
way.  It  is  as  natural  for  him  to  commit  crime  as 
for  the  priest  to  pray,  or  a  good  woman  to  give  alms 
to  the  poor.  There  are  different  plants  in  the 
garden.  There  are  rank  weeds  and  graceful  lilies  and 
belligerent  thistles,  but  they  are  all  the  products  of 
the  same  force.  They  may  bewail  their  lot  and  sta- 
tion, like  the  woman  who  had  found  out  herself  and 
who  cried:  "  O,  Lord,  I  am  a  goat,"  but  they  and 
we  are  what  we  are  because  the  potter  has  power 
over  the  clay. 

If  we  are  disposed  to  protest  against  such  an  ad- 
ministration, and  say :  "  It  is  not  fair ;  it  is  a  travesty 
on  justice,  it  is  the  mockery  of  existence,"  we  are 
promptly  silenced  with  the  remark :  "  Nay,  but,  O 
man,  who  art  thou  that  repliest  against  God?    Shall 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD'S  WORK    159 

the  thing  formed  say  to  him  that  formed  it,  Why 
hast  thou  made  me  thus  ?  "  What  is  left  but  a  dumb 
despair?  Man  is  but  a  handful  of  dust  along  the 
road  of  life,  a  grain  of  sand  in  the  desert,  a  worm 
burrowing  its  blind  way  into  a  clod,  an  insect  crawl- 
ing on  a  leaf,  a  drop  of  dew,  a  bit  of  Stardust  on  the 
path  of  the  ages. 

IS  THIS   CHRISTIANITY? 

Can  it  be  possible  that  this  is  the  teaching  of  the 
Christian  religion?  Can  it  be  that  this  is  the  gospel 
which  has  been  handed  down  to  us  for  our  guidance 
in  life  and  our  comfort  in  death?  Can  it  be  that 
to  reveal  this  the  Bible  was  written;  that  to  make 
this  known,  God  incarnated  Himself  and  ministered 
and  atoned;  that  to  preach  it,  a  ministry  was  or- 
dained and  temples  built  and  altars  Ht,  and  all  just 
to  say  that  human  beings  must  submit  to  the  in- 
evitable ?  "  Shall  the  thing  formed  say  to  him  that 
formed  it.  Why  hast  thou  made  me  thus  ?  " 

Can  it  be  that  this  is  the  mission  of  the  cross,  that 
for  this  the  Son  of  God  came  and  Hved  and  suf- 
fered and  taught  and  died?  Was  it  all  just  that 
Jesus  might  say  to  men  that  God's  rule  is  so  abso- 
lute that  "  he  will  have  mercy  on  whom  he  will  have 
mercy,  and  whom  he  will  he  hardeneth  "? 

Was  it  for  this  that  the  silence  was  broken  and 
the  gospel  invitation  uttered?  Is  this  all  that  Isaiah 
meant  when  he  said :  "  Ho,  everyone  that  thirsteth, 
come  ye  to  the  waters;  and  he  that  hath  no  money 
come  ye,  buy  and  eat ;  yea,  come,  buy  wine  and  milk 
without  money  and  without  price  "  ?     Was  it  what 


160   THE  POTTER  AND  THE  CLAY 

Jesus  meant  when  He  stood  on  the  last  great  day  of 
the  feast  and  cried :  "  If  any  man  thirst,  let  him 
come  unto  me  and  drink "  ?  Was  it  what  John 
meant  when  in  the  closing  chapter  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment he  writes :  "  And  the  Spirit  and  the  bride  say, 
Come,  and  let  him  that  heareth  say.  Come,  and  let 
him  that  is  athirst  come.  And  whosoever  will,  let 
him  take  the  water  of  life  freely  "  ?  Is  it  all  nothing 
but  rhetoric?  It  is  all  true  if  man  can  come,  but  if 
he  cannot  come,  it  is  worse  than  sounding  brass. 
And  does  it  not  say  that  he  cannot  come ;  that  before 
he  can  come,  the  potter  who  has  power  over  the 
clay  must  enable  him  to  come?  The  feeling  that  he 
can  come  is  just  a  pleasant  delusion.  Can  this  be 
Christianity?    What  shall  we  answer?    Yes  or  no? 

No,  it  is  not  Christianity  in  so  far  as  it  chal- 
lenges the  gospel  invitation.  We  cannot  believe  that 
God  would  toil  for  centuries  to  save  a  soul,  would 
fill  history  with  His  presence,  would  write  a  Bible, 
and  send  His  Son,  and  consecrate  the  cross,  and 
pour  out  His  spirit,  and  raise  up  the  church,  all  that 
the  gospel  invitation  might  be  uttered  and  salvation 
brought  to  a  man's  door;  and  then  deliberately  make 
it  impossible  for  the  man  to  receive  what  He  has 
brought.  It  is  inconceivable  that  God  would  thus 
nullify  His  own  work.  It  is  absurd  and  worse  to 
conclude  that  He  would  thus  block  the  way  and  de- 
feat Himself  in  all  that  He  has  been  seeking  to  ac- 
complish. No  logic  can  convince  us  of  the  truth  of 
such  a  lie. 

To  accept  any  such  conception  of  God  would  be  to 
make  Him  the  colossal  horror  of  the  world,  to  make 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD'S  WORK.    161 

religion  a  mockery,  and  murder  a  phase  of  inno- 
cence, and  crime  an  introduction  to  virtrue.  It  would 
be  to  make  morality  meaningless  and  vice  sacra- 
mental. If  everything  is  fixed  by  an  unalterable  de- 
cree, so  that  man  is  but  a  shuttlecock  in  the  loom 
of  fate,  existence  is  a  nightnfare  and  self-murder 
without  blame ;  the  gospel  invitation  is  insincere  and 
whatever  teaches  otherwise  must  be  false.  No  inter- 
pretation of  Christianity  is  true  that  brands  with  in- 
sincerity the  gospel  invitation.  '' 

We  must,  however,  answer :  "  Yes,  Christianity  is 
all  of  this,"  so  far  as  it  is  a  revelation  of  the  supreme 
and  sovereign  power  of  Almighty  God.  Christianity 
does  not  substitute  a  weak  and  vacillating  and  emo- 
tional deity  for  that  august  power  whose  stern  fea- 
tures the  ancient  creeds  of  fatalism  dimly  outlined 
against  their  gloomy  sky.  God  is  a  real  God.  He 
is  in  control.  His  plans  are  not  afterthoughts.  His 
measures  are  not  makeshifts.  He  knows  all  from 
the  beginning,  and  He  knows  it  because  He  has  de- 
termined it.  The  potter  has  power  over  the  clay. 
We  see  it  in  nature.  God  can  make  a  lump  of  coal 
into  a  gleaming  diamond.  The  processes  of  grace 
are  not  inferior  to  His  processes  in  nature. 

This  thought  which  has  been  slumbering  in  the 
heart  of  the  race  of  a  God  Who  cannot  be  baffled. 
Whose  power  cannot  be  thwarted,  and  Whose  intel- 
ligence cannot  be  duped,  is  not  a  lie.  God  is  all  this. 
He  is  a  real  God,  and  not  a  paper  divinity.  Every 
syllable  in  this  ninth  chapter  about  God's  work  is 
true,  and  true  to  the  uttermost.  What  Christianity 
does  is  not  to  diminish  God,  to  offer  the  world  a 


162        THE  POTTER  AND  THE  CLAY 

petty  and  petulant  divinity,  to  make  a  god  out  of  a 
man,  or  to  try  to  make  him  out  of  his  works.  What 
Christianity  does  is  to  change  the  dumb  despair  of 
fatalism  into  the  triumphant  confidence  of  Christian 
faith;  and  it  does  this,  not  by  stripping  Jehovah  of 
His  sovereignty,  not  by  tearing  down  omnipotence 
and  omniscience  and  omnipresence,  but  by  its  revela- 
tion of  the  character  of  God. 

THE   POTTER 

Christianity's  supreme  revelation  is  its  story  of 
the  character  of  God.  It  is  all  to  show  what  God 
is.  This  is  the  purpose  of  the  Bible.  It  lights  up 
the  darkness  about  man's  thought  of  his  Maker. 
This  is  the  purpose  of  the  cross.  Jesus  came  to  tell 
us  the  story  of  God.  He  is  "  the  brightness  of  his 
glory  and  the  express  image  of  his  person.^  What 
is  the  revelation?  It  is  that  God  is  good.  It  is 
that  God  is  love.  It  is  that  the  potter  is  none  other 
than  our  Father.  It  is  that  God  is  not  willing  that 
one  of  His  little  ones  should  perish.  Is  it  not  sig- 
nificant that  before  he  writes  this  ninth  chapter  of 
Romans  on  God's  work,  Paul  should  write  the  clos- 
ing verses  of  the  eighth  chapter  on  God's  inseparable 
love?  It  is  as  though  he  would  stamp  this  fact  of 
God's  character  on  our  conception  so  that  never 
again  would  it  be  possible  for  us  to  think  of  God 
without  thinking  of  His  love.  It  is  as  though  he 
would  say  to  us :  "I  am  going  to  open  the  door  into 
the  room  where  God  does  His  work,  but  before  you 
see  Him  at  work,  I  want  you  to  see  Him."  God 
*  Hebrews  i :  3. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD'S  WORK    163 

is  under  the  necessity  of  being  Himself.  There  is 
no  escape  from  that.  This  is  the  supreme  necessity 
of  the  world.  It  is  stamped  on  every  law  of  nature, 
into  every  principle  of  morality  and  truth  of  re- 
ligion, into  all  the  plans  and  purposes  and  thoughts 
and  activities  of  the  Deity.  God  can  never  get  away 
from  Himself.  You  and  I  cannot  do  that,  but  we 
are  finite.  God  is  infinite.  He  fills  the  world. 
Where  could  He  go  to  escape  Himself?  He  must 
be  Himself  in  every  corner  and  crevice,  in  every  fact 
and  change,  in  every  epoch  and  instant  of  His  vast 
universe.  He  must  be  Himself,  and  He  is  our 
Father. 

Think  of  this  as  you  study  the  potter  at  the  wheel. 
The  God  Who  controls  everything  is  the  God  of  the 
inseparable,  infinite,  changeless  love.  This  is  the 
force  which  holds  all  in  its  grip.  If  so,  where  is  any 
room  for  fear? 

He  says :  "  I  will  have  mercy  on  whom  I  will  have 
mercy,  and  I  will  have  compassion  on  whom  I  will 
have  compassion."  Shall  that  throw  us  into  despair 
when  our  Father  says  it?  It  is  not  an  announce- 
ment of  doom,  but  a  door  to  privilege. 

He  says :  "  It  is  not  of  him  that  willeth,  nor  of 
him  that  runneth,  but  of  God  that  sheweth  mercy." 
Tired  soul,  how  that  falls  on  the  ear  like  the  music 
of  heaven!  We  struggle,  but  fall  aweary,  and  the 
kind  God  lifts  His  tired  child  in  His  arms  and  car- 
ries him  on  His  bosom.  Even  this  passage  about 
Pharaoh  is  lit  with  hope,  for  it  is  something  to  have 
God  use  us,  even  though  we  be  unfit.  God  uses  us 
even  in  our  surly  and  ugly  moods,  and  that  is  bet- 


164        THE  POTTER  AND  THE  CLAY 

ter  than  to  be  thrown  on  the  slag  dump.  You  can- 
not get  out  of  this  potter's  hand.  Even  when  the 
clay  is  gritty  and  dry,  He  does  not  cast  it  away.  He 
can  make  something  out  of  the  worst  of  us. 

Will  you  say,  then :  "  Why  doth  he  yet  find 
fault?"  "Nay,  but,  O,  man,  who  art  thou  that  re- 
pliest  against  God?  Shall  the  thing  formed  say  to 
him  that  formed  it,  Why  hast  thou  made  me  thus  ?  " 
Say  rather :  "  O,  God,  have  Thy  way  with  me. 
Leave  me  not  to  my  poor  wits  for  a  moment." 

"Then  welcome  each  rebuff 
That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough, 
Each  sting  that  bids  nor  sit  nor  stand  but  go! 
Be  our  joys  three-parts  pain! 
Strive  and  hold  cheap  the  strain; 
Learn,  nor  account  the  pang;  dare. 
Never  grudge  the  throw !  "  ^ 

The  Potter  will  not  mar  His  work.  There  is  an 
old  story  of  an  earthly  potter  who  at  a  critical  mo- 
ment flung  his  body  into  the  furnace  and  fed  the 
fires  with  himself  lest  his  work  should  perish.  It 
is  what  God  did  in  the  Person  of  His  Son  on  the 
cross,  where  divine  love  laid  down  its  life  "  that 
whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish."  He 
may  make  one  vessel  unto  honor  and  another  unto 
dishonor,  one  for  a  high  service  and  another  for  an 
humble  service ;  but  these  are  relative  terms.  If  He 
makes  it  for  any  use  that  pleases  Him,  that  is  honor 
enough.  If  He  thinks  enough  of  my  life  to  shape 
it  on  His  wheel,  I  am  happy! 

*  Browning. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD'S  WORK   133 

"All  I  could  never  be, 
All,  men  ignored  in  me, 
This,  I  was  worth  to  God,  Whose  wheel 
The  pitcher  shaped."  * 

This  is  the  one  and  only  sufficient  and  satisfying 
solution  of  the  problem  of  "  the  potter  and  the 
clay," — the  character  of  God.  Back  of  all  of  God's 
dealings  with  us  is  His  character,  and  His  character 
is  love.  That  beats  all  philosophies  and  theologies. 
That  retires  all  man-made  explanations  and  apolo- 
gies for  God.  How  often  do  we  feel  as  Job  did 
when  his  three  friends  tried  to  comfort  him !  They 
climbed  on  the  ash  heap  and  sat  down  and  mourned 
with  him,  and  then  undertook  to  explain  to  him  why 
his  troubles  had  come  upon  him.  As  Job  listened 
to  their  drivel,  the  explanations  were  a  greater 
calamity  than  the  troubles  they  tried  to  explain, 
until  at  last,  exasperated  beyond  endurance.  Job 
said :  "  I  have  heard  many  such  things ;  miserable 
comforters  are  ye  all.  Shall  vain  words  have  an 
end?"  It  was  a  polite  way  of  saying:  "You  make 
me  tired.  Shut  up.  I  have  heard  enough ! "  The 
book  of  Job  is  a  good  commentary  on  the  back- 
ground of  the  subject  Paul  discusses  in  the  ninth 
chapter  of  Romans. 

THE  FEAR   GONE 

And  so  this  passage,  instead  of  being  our  despair, 

becomes  our  glorious  hope.    I  do  not  fear  the  Potter. 

I  do  not  shrink  from  the  touch  of  His  hand  on  this 

clay  soul  of  mine.    I  rejoice  that  my  salvation  does 

*  Browning. 


166        THE  POTTER  AND  THE  CLAY 

not  depend  on  myself,  and  that  I  am  not  left  to  fight 
temptation  single-handed  and  alone,  for  I  should 
fail.  I  am  happy  that  the  world  is  not  in  the  hands 
of  a  few  million  weak,  fallible,  clay  mortals,  but  of 
One  Whose  power  never  breaks  down,  and  Who 
does  not  stop  until  His  work  is  perfect. 

But  someone  is  asking  what  becomes  of  human 
freedom.  For  one,  I  want  no  freedom  which  takes 
me  out  of  God's  hand,  which  would  imperil  His 
sway  over  my  life,  even  if  it  were  possible.  But 
that  this  does  not  reduce  man  to  an  automaton  is  evi- 
dent. Paul  would  emphasize  this  before  he  lets  the 
chapter  close.  In  the  last  verse  he  flings  the  door 
of  opportunity  wide  open  in  the  face  of  man's  will, 
and  says :  "  And  whosoever  believeth  on  him  shall 
not  be  ashamed." 

He  is,  however,  not  discussing  human  freedom  in 
this  chapter,  but  God's  work.  When  he  gets  to  the 
twelfth  chapter,  he  is  ready  to  pay  his  respects  to 
free  agency,  and  he  begins  by  saying :  "  I  beseech 
you  therefore,  brethren,  by  the  mercies  of  God,  that 
ye  present  your  bodies  a  living  sacrifice,  holy,  ac- 
ceptable unto  God,  which  is  your  reasonable  service. 
And  be  not  conformed  to  this  world;  but  be  ye 
transformed  by  the  renewing  of  your  mind,  that  ye 
may  prove  what  is  that  good  and  acceptable  and  per- 
fect will  of  God." 

li  Paul's  creed  is  stark  fatalism,  this  exhortation 
is  rank  idiocy.  Paul's  experience  seemed  to  rise 
high  enough  to  see  that  God's  sovereignty  and  man's 
freedom  harmonize.  Few  of  us  reach  those  heights, 
but  it  is  something  to  have  the  testimony  of  a  man 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD'S  WORK    167 

who  has.  Freedom  is  God-given.  The  Potter 
shapes  it  into  the  clay.  "  Ye  shall  know  the  truth, 
and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free."  "  If  the  Son 
shall  make  you  free,  ye  shall  be  free  indeed.'*  God's 
sovereignty,  instead  of  imperiling,  guarantees  man's 
freedom. 

"  Hath  not  the  potter  power  over  the  clay  ?  '* 
Yes,  but  I  do  not  fear  it.  I  hope  it.  It  does  not 
make  me  despondent;  it  makes  me  happy.  It  does 
not  jeopardize  heaven;  it  insures  it.  We  are  the 
clay,  and  God  is  our  Potter,  and  so  the  future  is 
secure.  The  world  is  moving  toward  the  light.  God 
is  not  a  demon  bent  on  our  ruin,  but  our  Father 
with  His  arms  around  us.  Let  us  trust  Him  and 
dismiss  our  fears  and  rest  in  peace. 

Let  us  go  with  hope  along  the  way,  saying  with 
Rabbi  Ben  Ezra: 

"Grow  old  along  with  me. 
The  best  is  yet  to  be, 

The  last  of  life,  for  which  the  first  was  made: 
Our  times  are  in  His  hand 
Who  saith :  '  A  whole  I  planned/ 
Youth  shows  but  half;  trust  God, 
See  all,  nor  be  afraid."  * 

*  Browning. 


THE  ALIEN— PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE 
RACES 


"Brethren,  my  heart's  desire  and  prayer  to  God  for 
Israel  is,  that  they  might  be  saved.  For  I  bear  them  record 
that  they  have  a  zeal  of  God,  but  not  according  to  knowl- 
edge. For  they,  being  ignorant  of  God's  righteousness, 
and  going  about  to  establish  their  own  righteousness,  have 
not  submitted  themselves  unto  the  righteousness  of  God. 
For  Christ  is  the  end  of  the  law  for  righteousness  to  every- 
one that  beheveth."— Romans  id:  1-4. 

"  For  there  is  no  difference  between  the  Jew  and  the 
Greek:  for  the  same  Lord  over  all  is  rich  unto  all  that 
call  upon  him.  For  whosoever  shall  call  upon  the  name 
of  the  Lord  shall  be  saved."— Romans  10 :  12,  13. 


THE  ALIEN— PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE 
RACES 

THE  problem  of  the  races  is  and  has  always 
been  a  problem  packed  with  peril.  It  is  in- 
vested at  once  with  so  much  that  is  good 
and  so  much  that  is  bad,  with  such  a  mixture  of 
patriotism  and  provincialism,  that  it  becomes  easy  to 
mistake  wrong  for  right  and  to  sanctify  iniquity 
under  the  guise  of  serving  virtue. 

If  we  could  get  at  the  real  cause  of  human  injus- 
tice and  unrest,  we  should  probably  find  the  most 
prolific  source  in  racial  antagonisms  and  suspicions. 
Christ's  plea  for  unity  and  the  subsequent  teachings 
of  His  apostles  based  on  Christ's  plea  and  enjoining 
the  rule  of  good-will,  are  all  aimed  not  so  much  at 
ecclesiastical  as  at  racial  divisions.  Indeed,  if  racial 
antagonisms  could  be  cured,  ecclesiastical  divisions 
would  be  greatly  reduced.  A  close  study  of  that 
storm  center  of  human  unrest  among  the  little  na- 
tions in  the  Near  East,  Turkey  and  the  Balkan 
States,  will  discover  that  the  troubles  there  have 
been  more  racial  than  religious. 

Paul  grew  up  and  was  educated  in  this  atmosphere 

of  the  Near  East.    His  thinking  was  saturated  with 

the  clamor  and  strife  incident  to  the  problem  of  the 

races.     He  is  prepared,  therefore,  out  of  his  own 

171 


172  THE  ALIEN 

experience  to  estimate  the  problem,  and  also  to  tell 
us  whether  the  gospel  furnishes  an  adequate  solu- 
tion. If  the  gospel  could  lift  him  out  of  the  narrow 
suspicions  and  intense  jealousies  of  race  hate  into 
cosmopolitan  sympathies  and  international  concern, 
we  may  be  sure  it  can  furnish  a  solution  for  the 
problem  of  the  races. 

If  there  be  one  characteristic  of  Paul's  experience 
as  a  Christian  that  is  significant  and  arresting,  it  is 
its  bigness.  He  seemed  to  leap  at  a  bound  from  a 
provincial  into  a  citizen  of  the  world.  His  very 
title,  "  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles,"  is  revealing.  In 
what  Paul  has  to  say  in  Romans  about  the  Jew  and 
the  Gentile,  he  is  making  his  approach  to  this  prob- 
lem, until  in  the  twelfth  verse  of  the  tenth  chapter 
he  announces  the  cure :  "  For  there  is  no  difference 
between  the  Jew  and  the  Greek;  for  the  same  Lord 
over  all  is  rich  unto  all  that  call  upon  him."  That 
is  the  way  "  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ "  thinks  of 
the  races. 

As  we  turn  now  to  consider  this  problem  as  it  in- 
heres in  the  modern  world,  and  especially  as  it  af- 
fects our  American  life,  let  us  keep  this  great  Chris- 
tian principle  in  mind.  Many  causes  have  been  sug- 
gested for  the  great  war.  When  the  skies  have 
sufficiently  cleared,  and  we  have  gotten  far  enough 
away  for  an  accurate  historical  perspective,  it  will 
not  be  strange  should  we  discover  that,  while  occa- 
sions were  many,  the  real  cause  of  the  great  war  was 
deep-seated,  age-long,  blood-thick,  race-antago- 
nisms. 

Certainly  it  is  true  that  here  in  America  there  is 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  RACES    173 

no  more  pressing  problem  that  confronts  the  nation 
and  the  church. 

The  question  of  the  alien  is  a  burning  question  in 
America  to-day,  not  only  because  of  the  war  scare, 
not  only  because  of  pending  immigration  legislation, 
not  only  because  of  the  largely  increased  immigra- 
tion which  will  probably  come  to  our  shores  after 
the  war  is  over;  but  for  other  reasons  which  will 
appear  as  we  proceed.  Therefore,  in  embarking 
upon  a  sea  of  discussion  where  the  waters  are  as 
stormy  and  the  fogs  as  thick  as  they  are  in  this  sub- 
ject, it  is  well  to  be  careful  about  the  anchor.  It 
is  wise  for  us  to  tie  up  to  some  great  fact  or  truth 
which  is  stable  and  permanent,  a  truth  to  which  we 
may  hold  through  thick  and  thin,  through  night  and 
light,  through  all  the  passions  and  prejudices,  the 
tumults  and  perplexities  of  this  question  of  the 
races.  There  is  no  better  truth  for  an  anchor  than 
this  fundamental  truth  out  of  Paul's  experience. 

The  gravest,  greatest,  most  ominous,  most  un- 
solved problem  which  confronts  the  American  na- 
tion to-day  is  not  the  problem  of  trusts,  or  labor 
unions,  or  tariff  revision,  or  predatory  wealth,  or 
railroad  rates,  or  forest  preserves,  or  the  regulation 
and  suppression  of  the  liquor  traffic,  or  food  riots 
and  the  high  cost  of  living.  It  is  the  problem  of 
immigration,  of  the  aliens  in  America,  of  foreign- 
born  and  -bred  citizens  who  have  come  to  this  land 
to  better  their  condition,  and  whose  attachment  to 
America  is,  primarily  at  least,  a  bread-and-butter 
attachment. 

It  is  at  once  a  political,  a  financial,  an  industrial. 


174*  THE  ALIEN 

an  economic,  an  educational,  a  social,  an  ethical,  and 
a  religious  problem.  It  is  a  problem  into  which  are 
packed  all  other  problems  and  its  proportions  are 
growing  by  leaps  and  bounds  and  daily  becoming 
more  threatening.  There  is  no  problem  at  once  so 
portentous  and  so  promising,  so  full  of  hope  and  so 
freighted  with  despair.  In  it  lurk  calamity  and 
disaster  to  the  republic,  and  in  it  reside  reserves  of 
racial  vigor  and  primitive  independence  which  may 
flush  the  anaemic  veins  of  the  nation  with  a  fresh 
supply  of  the  red  blood  of  true  patriotism.  As  we 
confront  the  problem,  shall  it  be  with  fear  or  hope  ? 
Shall  we  say  that  the  night  is  at  hand,  or  that  the 
morning  cometh? 

THE   MENACE 

There  can  be  no  doubt  about  the  menace  of  the 
alien  to  America.  The  size  of  the  stream  of  immi- 
gration is  itself  a  menace.  It  is  colossal.  Before  the 
war  began,  a  million  and  a  quarter  were  pouring  in 
upon  us  every  year.  In  five  years  we  were  getting 
enough  people  from  Continental  Europe  to  settle  all 
Canada  at  the  present  population.  Since  1820,  some 
twenty-five  millions  of  foreigners  have  settled  in  the 
United  States.  It  is  estimated  that  forty  per  cent 
of  the  present  population  is  either  foreign-born  or 
the  children  of  foreign-born  parents.  After  the  war 
is  over,  the  tide  is  likely  largely  to  increase.  Im- 
migration is  just  starting  from  the  Orient,  and  when 
the  peoples  of  those  lands  begin  to  swarm  our  shores 
as  do  now  the  people  from  Southern  Europe,  the 
size  of  the  immigration  problem  will  be  doubled. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  RACES     175 

Immigration  is  practically  unrestricted.  Only  about 
ten  thousand  a  year  are  turned  back.  True,  this 
means  ten  thousand  tragedies, — ten  thousand  broken 
hearts,  ten  thousand  men  and  women  whose  eyes 
have  caught  sight  of  the  land  of  promise,  and  who 
have  then  been  driven  back  to  wander  in  the  wilder- 
ness until  they  die.  But  what  are  ten  thousand 
among  a  million?  And  this  number  will  probably 
increase  in  the  not  distant  future,  unless  checked  by 
legislation. 

Other  considerations  increase  the  menace.  The 
character  of  immigration  is  far  from  the  best.  In 
the  last  fifteen  years  it  has  changed  almost  entirely. 
Formerly  large  numbers  came  from  Germany,  from 
the  nations  of  Northern  Europe,  and  from  Great 
Britain.  Now  it  is  largely  from  Southern  Europe, 
from  Austria  and  Russia,  sixty-six  per  cent  of  our 
immigrants  coming  from  these  countries.  Fully  one- 
fourth  of  them  can  neither  read  nor  write.  They 
are  industrial  incompetents.  They  are  desirable 
neither  for  their  native  land  to  retain  nor  for  their 
adopted  land  to  acquire.  This  means  that  America 
is  becoming  a  slum  for  Southern  Europe. 

The  ease  with  which  the  alien  is  clothed  with 
citizenship  adds  to  the  menace.  It  takes  twenty-one 
years  for  a  native-born  American  to  acquire  the 
right  to  vote.  The  alien  may  get  it  in  five  years, 
sometimes  less.  Not  infrequently  his  five  years  of 
schooling  in  American  institutions  leaves  him  as 
unfit  to  exercise  suffrage  as  an  American  child  of 
the  same  term  of  residence.  Yet  his  ballot  counts 
for  as  much  in  settling  the  destiny  of  the  republic 


176  THE  ALIEN 

as  that  of  the  President.  This  may  be  glorious  de- 
mocracy, but  is  it  sane  patriotism? 

The  alien  settles  for  the  most  part  in  largely  con- 
gested centers  of  population.  This  packs  the  plague 
spots  with  peril.  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  the 
Northern  Atlantic  States  have  recently  been  getting 
ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  immigration.  These  peo- 
ple come  from  nations  that  do  not  easily  assimilate. 
The  people  have  false  notions  of  liberty.  On  the 
voyage  over,  the  few  remaining  restraints  are 
broken. 

This  is  the  problem.  It  is  gigantic.  There  has 
never  been  anything  equal  to  it  in  the  history  of  the 
race.  It  is  not  whether  these  people  should  come. 
They  are  coming.  They  are  already  here.  We  must 
grapple  with  the  problem.  We  must  conquer  it,  or 
it  will  destroy  us. 

AMERICA  AFFECTED 

It  is  inevitable  that  this  large  alien  population 
should  profoundly  affect  America.  There  is  a  care- 
less, easy-going  optimism  which  flies  the  flag  on  the 
Fourth  of  July,  and  imagines  the  country  is  saved; 
which  places  a  few  flowers  on  the  graves  of  the  old 
soldiers  on  Memorial  Day,  and  concludes  it  is 
patriotic;  which  gives  some  money  once  a  year  to 
Home  Missions,  and  feels  it  has  discharged  its  re- 
ligious duty  to  the  nation.  It  is  an  optimism  that  re- 
fuses to  see  difficulties.  One  of  the  American  vices 
is  to  think  that  nothing  can  hurt  America.  It  is  a 
popular  faith,  as  someone  has  said,  that  God  takes 
care  of  children,  fools,  and  the  United  States. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  RACES     177 

It  is,  however,  impossible  for  a  nation  to  receive 
so  large  an  influx  of  population  and  stay  unchanged. 
The  fact  that  ours  is  a  new  government  makes  the 
matter  all  the  more  serious.  We  are  as  yet  a  nation 
in  the  making.  As  well  think  of  discharging  the 
filthy  sewers  of  a  city  into  a  crystal  stream  and  ex- 
pect the  waters  to  stay  clean  and  sweet  as  to  dis- 
charge annually  this  tidal  wave  of  social  drift  from 
the  slums  of  Europe  into  America  and  the  nation 
not  feel  it. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  hurting  us.  The  alien 
is  affecting  America.  He  is  affecting  our  politics. 
He  influences  the  labor  question,  home  Hfe,  and 
social  and  religious  matters.  In  some  cases  he 
threatens  our  institutions.  The  peril  to  the  Sab- 
bath is  largely  a  peril  that  has  been  unloaded  on  us 
from  Continental  Europe.  It  is  very  nice  to  talk 
about  the  glory  of  our  free  institutions,  but  declama- 
tion will  not  preserve  them.  No  one  who  seriously 
studies  the  situation  can  doubt  the  truth  of  the 
statement  that  a  grave,  if  not  the  gravest,  peril 
which  threatens  our  national  future  is  at  Ellis  Island. 
What  shall  we  do  about  it  ?  Joseph  Cook  once  said : 
"  Unrestricted  immigration  is  doing  much  to  cause 
deterioration  in  the  quality  of  American  citizenship. 
Let  us  resolve  that  America  shall  be  neither  a  hermit 
nation  nor  a  Botany  Bay.  Let  us  make  our  land  a 
home  for  the  oppressed  of  all  nations,  but  not  a 
dumping-ground  for  the  criminals,  the  paupers,  the 
cripples,  and  the  illiterate  of  the  world.  Let  our  re- 
public in  its  crowded  and  hazardous  future  adopt 
these  watchwords,  to  be  made  good  all  along  our 


178  THE  ALIEN 

continental  and  oceanic  borders :  '  Welcome  for  the 
worthy,  protection  to  the  patriotic,  but  no  shelter  in 
America  for  those  who  would  destroy  the  American 
shelter  itself.' " 

If  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst,  we  must  close  the 
gates.  This  has  been  the  view  of  some  of  our  most 
patriotic  leaders.  Washington  questioned  the  ad- 
visability of  admitting  any  more  immigrants  except 
such  tradesmen  as  were  needed  to  develop  the  coun- 
try. Jefferson  wished  ''  there  were  an  ocean  of  fire 
between  this  country  and  Europe,  so  that  it  might 
be  impossible  for  any  more  immigrants  to  come 
hither."  Roosevelt  says:  "I  do  not  think  that  any 
immigrant  who  will  lower  the  standard  of  life 
among  our  people  should  be  admitted."  Phillips 
Brooks  said :  '*  If  the  hope  which  this  country  holds 
out  to  the  human  race  of  permanent  and  stable  gov- 
ernment is  to  be  impaired  by  the  enormous  and  un- 
regulated inroad  of  poverty  and  ignorance  which 
changed  conditions  of  transportation  have  brought 
upon  us,  then  for  the  sake  of  Europe  as  well  as  for 
the  sake  of  America,  the  coming  of  these  people 
should  be  checked  and  regulated  until  we  can  han- 
dle the  problems  that  are  already  facing  us."  We 
are  familiar  with  President  Wilson's  recent  utter- 
ances on  the  subject. 

And  yet  closing  the  gate  is  really  no  solution.  It 
is  like  locking  the  cell  after  the  culprit  has  escaped. 
The  alien  is  already  here.  Besides,  is  it  a  Christian 
solution?  Does  it  harmonize  with  the  doctrine  Paul 
taught  centuries  ago,  and  which  is  fundamental  to 
Christianity,  when  he  said :  *'  There  is  no  difference 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  RACES     179 

between  the  Jew  and  the  Greek,  for  the  same  Lord 
over  all  is  rich  unto  all  that  call  upon  Him  "  ? 

America  cannot,  if  it  would,  be  a  hermit  nation. 
The  day  is  past  for  any  people  to  bar  themselves  off 
from  the  rest  of  mankind.  In  these  days  of  wire- 
less telegraphy  and  aerial  navigation  and  universal 
language,  the  pulse-beat  of  the  race  kin  cannot  be 
ignored.  There  are  no  longer  any  desert  sohtudes. 
The  races  have  become  the  people. 

Barring  the  gate  is  not  solving  the  problem.  It 
is  evading  it.  Shutting  your  eyes  does  not  diminish 
the  trouble  in  the  world.  You  have  not  solved  the 
problem  of  poverty  when  you  have  barred  your  door 
to  the  street  and  sat  down  with  wife  and  children 
around  a  bountiful  table.  What  of  the  poverty  that 
is  still  crying  in  the  street  and  moaning  in  the  hovel 
and  weeping  in  rags  and  want?  What  of  the  faces 
that  are  black  with  the  marks  of  the  plague,  and  the 
homes  that  are  crouching  under  the  fear  of  a  stalk- 
ing horror?  Shutting  your  eyes  and  barring  the 
door  and  closing  the  gate  is  no  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem of  the  thronging  people, — certainly  not  to  one 
who  has  felt  his  pulses  beat  with  love  of  humanity, 
and  who  has  made  Paul's  great  doctrine  his  creed! 

There  is  but  one  solution  of  the  problem,  and  that 
solution  is  not  exclusion,  but  assimilation.  These 
foreigners  must  be  taken  up  into  our  national  life 
and  made  a  part  of  us.  They  must  be  made  Ameri- 
cans. We  do  not  want  America  to  become  another 
Italy,  or  a  second  Russia,  or  a  Western  Germany, 
or  even  a  new  England.  The  millions  who  seek  a 
new  home  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  if  we  are 


180  THE  ALIEN 

to  bless  each  other,  must  be  of  us  as  well  as  among 
us.  Assimilation  is  the  solution,  and  it  is  to  be 
brought  about,  not  by  legislation,  not  chiefly  by  edu- 
cation, but  pre-eminently  by  religion. 

THE  ALIEN    MUST  BE  CHRISTIANIZED 

The  problem  can  be  solved  only  by  the  gospel  of 
Christ.  We  are  not  afraid  of  any  shipload  of  for- 
eigners who  come  to  us  loyal  to  the  cross  of  Christ. 
They  cannot  come  too  soon  or  too  often.  We  wel- 
come them.  If  they  are  Christians,  we  are  willing 
to  trust  them  with  our  institutions  as  freely  as  we 
trust  ourselves.  But  what  if  they  are  not  Chris- 
tians? What  if  they  are  only  nominal  Christians? 
Is  it  not  evident  that  our  salvation  as  a  nation  de- 
pends upon  our  making  them  Christians?  There  is 
a  stronger  bond  than  love  of  country.  It  is  love  of 
Christ.  And  when  men  find  Christ  they  are  one, 
"  though  they  come  from  the  ends  of  the  earth." 

Therefore,  this  question  is  a  great  missionary 
problem.  It  rises  up  before  us.  It  is  imperative. 
In  what  is  no  doubt  a  providence,  God  has  brought 
the  ends  of  the  earth  to  us.  We  were  slow  in  taking 
the  gospel  to  them.  The  Savior  Who  talked  to  His 
disciples  about  ripe  harvest  fields  and  said :  "  Go  ye 
into  all  the  earth,"  seems  now  to  be  saying :  "  I 
have  waited  long,  but  my  people  are  slow  to  go. 
After  nineteen  hundred  years,  two-thirds  of  the 
world  are  without  the  gospel.  I  will  bring  the  na- 
tions to  my  people."  They  are  here  at  our  doors. 
It  is  a  glorious  missionary  opportunity.     Shame  on 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  RACES     181 

us  if  we  back  down  at  such  a  crisis,  and  run  to 
cover  under  the  mask  of  playing  patriotic  to 
America ! 

The  success  or  failure  of  Foreign  Missions  is 
going  to  be  settled  here  at  home.  If  we  cannot 
Christianize  the  heathen  in  a  Christian  country,  we 
will  never  do  it  in  a  heathen  country.  God  has 
driven  us  into  a  corner,  and  is  saying  to  the  church : 
"  Now  do  your  duty  or  die !  "  There  never  was 
a  greater  opportunity  than  that  which  now  confronts 
Protestant  Christianity  in  America.  Every  motive 
of  home  missionary  zeal  and  foreign  missionary  en- 
thusiasm, as  well  as  love  of  country,  is  packed  into 
the  call  to  evangelize  the  alien.  And  the  alien  is 
convertible.  He  can  be  Christianized.  Christ  is  not 
only  "  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  "  to  Sons 
of  the  American  Revolution,  to  Colonial  Dames,  to 
Daughters  of  the  Confederacy,  to  members  of  the 
Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  but  to  the  Italian  in 
the  ditch,  to  the  Hungarian  in  the  coal  mine,  to  the 
Pole  in  the  packing-house,  to  the  Jew  from  the 
steppes  of  Russia,  to  the  Hindu  from  the  filth  of 
India.  The  tide  of  immigration  rolls  in,  carrying  on 
its  crest  a  matchless  opportunity  to  the  Christian 
church ! 

Are  we  meeting  it?  What  does  the  immigrant 
think  of  our  Christianity?  Does  it  impress  him? 
Does  he  believe  that  we  believe  it?  Do  we  give 
him  Christian  treatment?  Not  always.  A  Ruthenian 
priest  says :  "  My  people  do  not  live  in  America. 
They  live  underneath  America.  America  goes  on 
over  their  heads.     My  people  do  not  love  America. 


182  THE  ALIEN 

Why  should  they  from  what  they  see  of  it  ?  "  The 
wretchedness  of  many  of  these  aliens  in  a  strange 
land  is  enough  to  move  to  pity  the  sternest  of  that 
guild  whose  shibboleth  is :  "  America  for  the  Ameri- 
cans !  "  "  Talk  of  Dante's  hell,"  said  General  Booth, 
"  and  all  the  horrors  and  cruelties  of  the  lost !  The 
man  who  walks  with  open  eyes  and  bleeding  heart 
through  the  shambles  of  our  civilization  needs  no 
such  fantastic  images  of  the  poet  to  teach  him 
horror !  " 

Instead  of  meeting  it,  we  are  frequently  running 
away  from  it.  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  flight  of 
churches  up  town?  Is  it  a  strategic  advance  or  a 
masterly  retreat?  Are  there  no  people  down  town? 
There  are  nowhere  so  many  people,  but  they  are  not 
our  sort  of  people!  Shame  on  us!  We  have 
thought  more  of  preserving  a  respectable  congrega- 
tion of  rich  pew-holders  than  of  saving  the  alien. 
Despite  all  our  highflowh  rhetoric  about  loving 
America,  we  are  more  concerned  with  protecting 
ourselves. 

Only  Christianity  can  solve  the  problem,  but  it 
will  take  a  new  brand  of  Christianity, — not  this 
formal,  faint-hearted,  self-indulgent,  dress-parade 
Christianity,  but  one  that  can  stand  bad  smells  and 
foul  sights,  and  go  down  to  the  gates  of  hell  to  save 
a  lost  soul, — that  has  enough  of  Christ  in  it  to  love 
iniquity  into  goodness,  and  hostility  into  brother- 
hood ! 

"  For  there  is  no  difference  between  the  Jew  and 
the  Greek,  for  the  same  Lord  over  all  is  rich  unto 
all  that  call  upon  him."    That  is  the  way  the  serv- 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  RACES     183 

ants  of  Jesus  Christ  in  this  age  and  in  this  land  must 
think  of  the  races ;  and  when  we  do,  the  age  of  hate 
will  be  over,  and  men  will  think  of  war  as  a  horror 
they  need  fear  no  more  forever! 


XI 

A    STUMBLE   BUT   NOT   A   FALL— PAUL'S 
DOCTRINE  OF  PERSEVERANCE 


"I  say,  then,  hath  God  cast  away  his  people?  God  for- 
bid. For  I  also  am  an  Israelite,  of  the  seed  of  Abraham, 
of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin." — ^Romans  ii:i. 

"  Even  so  then  at  this  present  time  also  there  is  a  rem- 
nant according  to  the  election  of  grace.  And  if  by  grace, 
then  is  it  no  more  of  works :  otherwise  grace  is  no  more 
grace.  But  if  it  be  of  works  then  is  it  no  more  grace: 
otherwise  work  is  no  more  work." — Romans  11:5,  6. 

"  I  say,  then,  Have  they  stumbled  that  they  should  fall  ? 
God  forbid:  but  rather  through  their  fall  salvation  is  come 
unto  the  Gentiles,  for  to  provoke  them  to  jealousy." — 
Romans  ii:  ii. 

"And  so  all  Israel  shall  be  saved:  as  it  is  written, 
There  shall  come  out  of  Sion  the  Deliverer,  and  shall  turn 
away  ungodliness  from  Jacob." — Romans  11:26. 


XI 

A   STUMBLE   BUT    NOT   A   FALL— PAUL'S 
DOCTRINE  OF  PERSEVERANCE 

IN  giving  his  estimate  of  the  type  of  character 
developed  in  the  student  life  of  Northfield,  a 
college  president  is  reported  to  have  paid  these 
students  this  tribute :  "  They  endure  to  the  end."  It 
is  this  quality,  translated  into  Christian  experience, 
that  we  are  to  consider  in  this  chapter. 

If  Christ's  servant  is  to  stick  to  his  task,  he  must 
believe  not  only  that  what  he  does  is  worth  while, 
but  that  what  he  does  is  forever.  He  must  write 
into  his  creed  what  some  Christians  have  called 
"  the  final  perseverance  of  the  saints,"  and  others, 
*'  the  final  preservation  of  the  saints,"  and  still 
others,  "  the  final  perseverance  of  God's  grace,"  but 
which  translated  into  the  language  of  Christian  ex- 
perience means  that  God  does  not  do  imperfect  work 
in  the  soul's  salvation. 

Paul  believed  that  God's  work  in  man's  soul  is 
indestructible.  Because  of  this  conviction,  he  could 
say :  "  I  know  whom  I  have  believed,  and  am  per- 
suaded that  he  is  able  to  keep  that  which  I  have 
committed  unto  him  against  that  day."  This  sublime 
belief  sustained  and  steadied  him  in  his  life  of 
service,  as  it  has  those  in  all  ages  who  have  wrought 
well  for  God  and  man. 

187 


188     A  STUMBLE  BUT  NOT  A  FALL 

This  doctrine  of  perseverance  he  develops  in  the 
eleventh  chapter  of  Romans  in  his  study  of  God's 
dealings  with  His  chosen  people.  He  says :  **  Hath 
God  cast  away  his  people  ?  God  forbid.  ...  I  say, 
then,  Have  they  stumbled  that  they  should  fall? 
God  forbid." 

THE  JEW   AND   PERSEVERANCE 

Paul  is  writing  to  the  Romans  about  the  Jews. 
He  is  not  writing  with  that  prejudice  which  for 
ages  has  dogged  the  steps  of  the  Jew  wherever  he 
has  gone.  Being  himself  a  Jew,  Paul  had  none  of 
that  hatred  of  the  Jew  which  some  Christians  in  all 
generations  have  seemed  to  regard  as  a  most  Chris- 
tian hatred.  Because  Christ's  persecutors  said: 
"  His  blood  be  on  us,  and  on  our  children,"  ^  it  has 
been  the  creed  of  many  Christians  to  regard  and 
treat  the  Jew  as  a  social  and  religious  outcast.  They 
have  felt  that  they  would  be  disloyal  to  Christ  were 
they  to  act  differently.  An  old  lady  in  Virginia  once 
said  to  the  writer  that  she  hated  snakes  as  a  matter 
of  conscience.  She  admitted  that  some  snakes  were 
harmless,  but  she  remembered  what  the  Bible  said 
about  enmity  between  the  seed  of  the  woman  and 
the  seed  of  the  serpent,  and  she  did  not  see  how  any 
good  Christian  could  have  anything  but  a  feeling  of 
hatred  to  snakes.  For  very  much  the  same  kind  of 
reason,  there  are  people  who  make  it  a  matter  of 
conscience  to  cherish  a  feeling  of  aversion  to  the 
Jew.  But  the  feeling  is  wrong.  It  is  most  un- 
christian. It  can  have  no  place  in  a  life  of  service. 
'  Matt.  27 :  25. 


DOCTRINE  OF  PERSEVERANCE    189 

It  is  far  from  the  teachings  and  spirit  of  the  gentle 
Christ,  Who  on  the  cross  prayed :  '*  Father,  forgive 
them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

Paul  admits  that  the  Jews  have  stumbled.  They 
made  a  colossal  blunder  in  rejecting  Christ,  in  fail- 
ing to  recognize  Him  as  the  Messiah.  This  blunder 
was  fatal  to  their  national  growth.  The  Jews  were 
distinctively  a  religious  nation.  The  Greek  gave  the 
world  culture;  the  Roman,  law;  but  the  Jew,  re- 
ligion. The  amazing  spectacle  which  the  Jew  pre- 
sents to-day  is  that  of  the  most  religious  race  of 
time  without  a  religious  message.  The  old  divine 
note  has  dwindled  down  into  a  philanthropic  or  hu- 
manitarian impulse.  The  Jew  has  a  zeal,  but  not 
according  to  knowledge.  He  is  without  a  mission 
because  without  a  message.  He  stumbled  at  the 
cross.  While  God  has  blessed  this  false  step  of 
His  chosen  people  to  the  bringing  in  of  the  Gentiles, 
the  result  to  the  Jew  has  been  unspeakably  disas- 
trous. As  one  of  their  most  learned  and  distin- 
guished rabbis  remarked,  after  a  visit  to  the  Holy 
Land  and  a  careful  study  of  the  whole  question  of 
Jewish  nationalism :  "  The  only  hope  for  the  Jew  is 
Jesus." 

While  they  have  stumbled,  it  is  not  that  they 
should  fall,  it  is  not  that  they  should  be  utterly  cast 
off.  God  thinks  as  much  of  a  Jew  as  He  ever  did. 
The  Jews  are  no  less  God's  chosen  people  now 
than  in  the  ancient  times.  Some  day  they  will  turn 
to  Christ.  The  prediction  is  unmistakable.  Their 
apostasy  is  in  part  and  but  for  a  time.  Their  spir- 
itual   blindness    is    neither    total    nor    permanent. 


190      A  STUMBLE  BUT  NOT  A  FALL 

To-day  many  Jews,  while  not  accepting  the  dogmas 
about  Christ's  person,  are  powerfully  influenced  by 
both  His  teachings  and  spirit.  Multitudes  of  them 
are  not  far  from  the  kingdom.  The  veil  is  still 
there,  but  some  day  it  will  be  taken  away  from  their 
faces,  and  they  shall  look  on  Him  Whom  they  have 
pierced,  and  discover  there  the  features  of  their 
glorious  Messiah. 

One  morning  at  daybreak,  I  stood  with  some 
friends  on  the  summit  of  the  Grandfather  Mountain 
in  Western  North  Carolina.  We  had  spent  the 
night  on  top  to  be  ready  for  the  view,  but  when  we 
awoke,  the  mist  covered  everything.  We  could  not 
see  each  other  ten  feet  distant.  The  wind  was  blow- 
ing a  gale  as  we  stood  there  on  the  big  rock  that 
points  the  mountain  peak,  and  waited.  Somewhere 
out  there  beyond  the  cloud  that  swathed  us,  the  sun 
was  shining  and  the  green  fields  lay  in  its  radiant 
light,  but  it  was  all  hidden  from  us.  We  waited. 
Would  the  mist  lift?  Would  the  sun  scatter  the 
cloud?  As  we  waited  and  watched,  suddenly  the 
wind  tore  a  great  hole  in  the  cloud,  and  we  saw  the 
world!  Thus  it  will  be  some  day  with  the  mists 
which  veil  the  eyes  of  God's  ancient  Israel.  The 
winds  of  God's  will  shall  tear  open  the  cloud,  the 
veil  shall  be  rent  in  twain,  and  the  Jews  shall  see 
Jesus. 

That  will  be  the  great  day  on  earth  for  the  king- 
dom of  Christ.  It  will  be  a  "  fullness  of  time."  Then 
the  Jews  will  come  into  their  own.  They  will  be 
re-baptized  with  the  ancient  fire  and  the  old-time 
enthusiasm.    Then  they  will  have  a  message  and  a 


DOCTRINE  OF  PERSEVERANCE     191 

mission,  and  the  tongue  of  the  dumb  shall  sing. 
Then  there  will  be  no  regret  among  any  nation  at 
the  presence  of  so  large  a  Jewish  population  among 
them.  Then  the  million  Jews  in  New  York  will  not 
be  the  city's  problem,  but  its  salvation.  When  the 
Jews  shall  claim  as  their  own  the  Jesus  Who  has  al- 
ways belonged  to  them,  the  church  will  feel  a  new 
thrill  as  it  sings  its  coronation  hymn,  and  says: 

"Ye  chosen  seed  of  Israel's  race, 
Ye  ransomed  from  the  fall." 

Christ's  servants  must  believe  in  the  ultimate 
Christianization  of  Israel.  They  must  pray  and  toil 
for  it.  Because  here  and  there  a  Jew  who  has  pro- 
fessed Christ  turns  out  to  be  a  convert  for  revenue 
only,  we  must  not  conclude  that  the  Jew  has  stum- 
bled that  he  should  fall.  In  accepting  Christ,  he 
must  face  hardship  and  ostracism,  but  let  him  not 
despair.  A  converted  Jew  is  not  one  who  has  dis- 
graced himself.  Paul  was  a  converted  Jew.  So  also 
were  the  other  apostles.  And  so,  some  day,  **  shall 
all  Israel  be  saved." 

THE  CHRISTIAN  AND  PERSEVERANCE 

Paul  is  also  writing  to  the  Romans  about  the 
Christians.  He  would  make  a  race-wide  application 
of  this  phase  of  the  national  life  of  his  own  people. 
He  would  make  God's  dealings  with  the  Jews  an 
interpretation  of  His  dealings  with  His  people  of  all 
nations  and  ages.  The  story  of  the  religious  devel- 
opment of  the  Hebrew  people  is  a  portrayal  in  large 
outline   of   the   religious   development   of   the   indi- 


192      A  STUMBLE  BUT  NOT  A  FALL 

vidual.  This  is  what  makes  the  Old  Testament  so 
valuable.  All  that  is  recorded  there  writes  itself 
down  in  every  life  that  feels  after  and  seeks  for 
God. 

The  Christian  stumbles.  That  he  does  would 
amaze  us,  but  for  the  fact  that  its  frequency  has 
made  it  the  most  commonplace  incident  of  life.  It 
would  seem  that  a  converted  man  would  let  sin 
alone  and  walk  straight  and  live  right.  It  would 
seem  that  after  one  has  seen  what  it  cost  to  redeem 
him,  after  he  has  looked  upon  the  ignominy  and  ruin 
of  sin  in  the  light  of  the  cross,  after  he  has  learned 
its  terrible  penalty  in  the  sufferings  of  Calvary,  he 
would  be  done  with  sin  forever.  How  can  a  man 
ever  go  back  to  that  hell  ?  How  can  he  ever  get  his 
consent  to  commit  an  act  against  which  the  cross 
cries  out?  It  would  seem  that  forgiveness  must 
cure  the  soul  of  that  folly  and  that  redemption  would 
carry  with  it  complete  and  permanent  emancipation. 
It  does  not.  The  Christian  stumbles,  and  we  have 
grown  so  used  to  it  that  we  expect  it.  We  do  not 
expect  anything  else.  It  is  a  part  of  the  regular 
program. 

And  yet  it  is  no  part  of  God's  plan  that  His  child 
should  stumble  and  blunder  on  toward  heaven.  He 
not  only  saves  from  sin,  but  from  sinning.  "  They 
shall  call  his  name  Jesus,  for  he  shall  save  his  peo- 
ple from  their  sins."  He  expects  us  to  quit  doing 
wrong,  and  to  do  right.  God  does  not  tempt  any 
man  to  sin.  There  is  no  license  in  grace  for  indul- 
gence in  transgression.  Christ  died  on  the  cross  not 
merely  to  make  us  immune  from  the  penalty  of  sin, 


DOCTRINE  OF  PERSEVERANCE     193 

but  to  deliver  us  from  the  desire  to  sin.  True,  Paul 
speaks  of  a  conflict.  He  says :  *'  I  see  another  law 
in  my  members,  warring  against  the  law  of  my 
mind  and  bringing  me  into  captivity  to  the  law  of 
sin  which  is  in  my  members.  O,  wretched  man  that 
I  am !  Who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this 
death?"  Some  conclude  that  because  he  felt  this 
way,  all  Christians  should.  Therefore  they  camp  in 
the  seventh  chapter  of  Romans,  and  their  experience 
terminates  in  a  wail  over  temptation.  But  Paul 
wrote  the  eighth  chapter  of  Romans  also,  the  vic- 
tory chapter  of  the  Bible,  in  which  he  asks :  "  Who 
shall  lay  anything  to  the  charge  of  God's  elect?" 
There  is  where  God  expects  His  children  to  live. 
He  wrote  the  tenth  chapter,  too,  the  assurance 
chapter,  in  which  he  reminds  us  that  a  stumble  is 
not  a  fall,  and  in  which  he  declares  for  the  final 
redemption  of  God's  chosen  ones.  That  is  what 
God  expects  us  to  claim. 

God  wants  us  to  be  perfect.  The  standard  He 
sets  is  faultless.  The  goal  of  the  divine  purpose  is 
not  a  discord,  but  a  harmony;  it  is  not  a  defeat,  but 
a  victory ;  it  is  not  a  blemish,  but  perfection.  "  Be 
ye  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven 
is  perfect."  While  from  the  human  standpoint  this 
standard  of  perfection  is  impossible,  shall  we  call  it 
impossible  from  the  divine  standpoint?  Are  we 
ready  to  admit  that  sin  is  ever  a  necessity?  It  is 
actual,  but  is  it  necessary?  It  was  not  necessary 
for  Jesus  to  sin.  Sin  was  neither  necessary  nor 
actual  with  Him,  because  He  met  it  in  the  might  of 
God.    Are  not  all  the  spiritual  resources  with  which 


194      A  STUMBLE  BUT  NOT  A  FALL 

He  met  sin  at  our  disposal?  To  say  that  He  used 
His  Godhood  to  protect  Himself  against  temptation 
is  to  make  Him  an  actor,  and  to  brand  Calvary  with 
insincerity.  God's  standard  is  impossible  only  when 
God  is  left  out. 

But  we  disappoint  God.  Christians  are  not  sin- 
less. Despite  repentance,  forgiveness,  regeneration 
and  the  sublime  hopes  of  heaven,  somehow  we  keep 
on  stumbling.  "  No  mere  man  since  the  fall  is  able 
perfectly  to  keep  the  commandments  of  God,  but 
doth  daily  break  them  in  thought,  word,  and  deed.'* 
We  keep  on  living  in  the  seventh  chapter  of  Ro- 
mans. There  are  no  sinless  people.  Some  claim  it, 
but  their  claims  would  not  bring  ten  per  cent  of  their 
face  value  in  any  market  of  public  opinion.  There 
is  no  more  characteristic  story  of  Mr.  D.  L.  Moody 
than  that  which  relates  how  a  man  stopped  at  his 
gate  yonder  one  day  and  said  to  the  great  evangelist 
and  student  of  human  nature :  *'  I  arp  completely 
sanctified.  I  am  purged  from  all  sin."  "  We  will 
ask  your  wife  about  it,"  was  the  laconic  reply  with 
which  Mr.  Moody  jolted  him  out  of  his  fool's 
paradise. 

Sometimes  stumbling  is  notorious.  The  incon- 
sistencies of  professing  Christians  become  common 
town  talk.  They  are  in  the  straight  and  narrow  way, 
but  they  find  it  hard  to  keep  their  feet  there.  The 
pilgrim  journey  becomes  a  succession  of  slides  in 
the  wrong  direction.  Instead  of  walking  erect,  the 
saint  staggers.  It  is  remarkable  what  people  will 
consent  to  do,  and  yet  claim  to  be  Christians.  Claim- 
ing God  as  their  Father  and  Christ  as  their  Savior 


DOCTRINE  OF  PERSEVERANCE     195 

and  heaven  as  their  home,  they  cover  themselves 
with  the  ruin  of  the  Ten  Commandments. 

Are  we  to  conclude  from  all  this  that  Christianity- 
is  a  fraud?  God  forbid!  Shall  we  say  that  salva- 
tion is  a  sham  and  the  Bible  false?  So  some 
reason,  but  it  is  not  a  fair  inference;  it  would  be 
as  sane  to  brand  the  laws  of  a  state  as  crimi- 
nal because  there  are  some  people  in  the  peniten- 
tiary. 

Shall  we  conclude  that  there  is  no  such  person  as 
a  genuine  Christian?  God  forbid!  Shall  we  say 
that  since  men  stumble  toward  heaven,  the  heavenly 
goal  is  itself  infamous?  So  some  reason,  but  their 
logic  is  vicious.  Jacob  stumbled,  but  God  is  known 
as  the  God  of  Jacob.  David  stumbled,  but  he 
was  a  man  after  God's  heart.  Peter  stumbled, 
but  he  lived  to  write  two  of  the  books  of  the 
Bible. 

Shall  we  conclude  that  he  who  stumbles  was  mis- 
taken when  he  thought  he  was  saved?  God  forbid! 
Yonder  is  a  man  who  becomes  a  Christian.  He  sin- 
cerely repents,  confesses  his  sins,  accepts  Christ, 
professes  Him  before  men,  and  enters  on  Christian 
service.  One  day  he  stumbles,  does  wrong,  and 
yields  to  temptation.  Are  we  to  conclude  that  be- 
cause he  stumbled,  he  never  started;  that  because 
he  has  fallen  into  sin,  he  has  never  been  forgiven? 
That  is  precisely  what  Satan  wants  him  to  believe, 
but  it  is  a  lie;  one  of  the  worst,  the  most  insidious 
and  dangerous  that  assails  the  spiritual  life;  and  a 
lie  that  leads  to  the  blackest  and  forlornest  pit  of 
hell. 


196      A  STUMBLE  BUT  NOT  A  FALL 

A  STUMBLE  IS  NOT  A  FALL 

The  Christian  does  not  stumble  that  he  should  fall. 
When  one  has  sincerely  repented  of  sin  and  accepted 
Christ  as  his  Savior,  and  then  stumbles,  he  is  not 
to  conclude  that  there  is  no  efficacy  in  Christianity, 
any  more  than  a  sick  man  who  takes  one  dose  of 
the  doctor's  medicine  and  quits  is  to  conclude  that 
the  doctor  is  a  quack.  Neither  is  he  to  conclude  that 
Christ  is  without  power  to  save.  He  has  saved 
others.  The  fact  that  He  has  saved  one  soul  from 
sin  is  the  Savior's  sufficient  certificate.  Neverthe- 
less, just  as  an  engine  may  be  on  the  track,  but 
powerless  to  run  until  the  steam  is  up,  so  salvation 
calls  for  more  than  justification.  It  would  seem  that 
one  may  be  delivered  from  condemnation,  and  yet 
stop  short  of  a  life  of  privilege  and  power. 

Neither  is  he  to  conclude  that  prayer  is  unan- 
swered any  more  than  he  is  to  conclude  that  the 
power-house  is  in  ruins  when  the  connection  is 
broken.  Sin  breaks  the  connection.  It  is  a  non- 
conductor of  spiritual  power. 

Certainly  he  must  not  conclude  that  he  is  un- 
saved ;  that  because  he  has  yielded  to  temptation,  his 
soul  is  lost;  that  because  he  has  stumbled,  he  has 
fallen ;  that  because  he  has  again  stained  his  life 
with  sin.  Calvary  has  lost  its  efficacy.  **  He  that 
is  cleansed  needeth  not  save  to  wash  his  feet." 
Stumbling  is  an  afifair  of  the  feet  rather  than  of  the 
head  or  the  heart.  It  is  serious,  but  not  necessarily 
fatal. 

Salvation,   once  it  is  ours   through   Christ,   is  a 


DOCTRINE  OF  PERSEVERANCE     197 

permanent  asset.  The  Good  Shepherd  says  of  His 
sheep :  *'  I  give  unto  them  eternal  life,  and  they  shall 
never  perish,  neither  shall  any  pluck  them  out  of  my 
hand." 

The  Bible  teaching  on  this  subject  is  that  the 
Christian  may  stumble  into  sin,  but  he  is  still  God's 
child,  as  much  as  your  child  is  yours  even  though 
he  may  sometimes  disobey  you.  Christ's  work  is 
not  imperfect,  and  every  Christian  may  speak  in  the 
terms  of  Paul's  experience  and  say :  "  I  know  whom 
I  have  believed,  and  am  persuaded  that  he  is  able 
to  keep  that  which  I  have  committed  unto  him 
against  that  day."  We  do  not  keep  ourselves.  We 
are  "  kept."  And  therein  heaven  is  secure.  What, 
then,  is  the  harm  of  stumbling?  What  damage  can 
sin  do?  Much  in  every  way.  No  sin  was  ever 
harmless  nor  devoid  of  penalty. 

The  sins  of  the  Christian  grieve  Christ.  This 
alone  is  enough  to  make  us  hate  sin.  The  son  who 
affected  to  love  his  mother,  but  who  neglected  her 
shamefully,  made  a  claim  for  which  no  one  had  any 
respect.  Our  sins  discredit  the  Savior.  They  in- 
jure His  cause.  Are  we  willing  to  bring  reproach 
on  that  dear  name  ?  We  may  sing  "  Sweetest  name 
on  mortal  tongue,"  but  if  our  misdeeds  cover  the 
name  with  shame,  the  song  slanders  Christ.  We 
may  say  that  we  would  die  for  Him,  but  what  He 
asks  is  that  we  live  for  Him.  Living  is  less  haz- 
ardous, but  really  more  heroic. 

The  Christian  cheats  his  own  soul  out  of  happiness 
and  growth  by  sinning.  Sin  dwarfs  and  stunts 
every  God-like  trait  in  our  natures.     Christian  life 


198      A  STUMBLE  BUT  NOT  A  FALL 

is  a  development,  an  evolution,  but  sin  arrests 
this  development.  It  brings  about  spiritual  dis- 
figurement. It  makes  a  cripple  out  of  God's 
child. 

It  is  fatal  to  influence.  The  disaster  of  being  a 
stumbling-block  is  the  disastrous  effect  on  the  lives 
of  others.  Can  one  be  happy  who  has  succeeded  in 
getting  himself  saved,  but  who  has  been  instru- 
mental in  keeping  others  from  being  saved  ?  "  De- 
liver me  from  blood-guiltiness,  O,  God,  thou  God 
of  my  salvation,"  was  the  cry  of  one  of  God's  chil- 
dren who  felt  himself  guilty  of  the  infamy  of  hin- 
dering others  in  their  approach  to  heaven. 

Here  is  where  we  reach  the  heart  of  this  ques- 
tion. Sin  is  fatal  to  service.  Because  a  stumble  is 
not  a  fall,  we  are  not  to  conclude  that  we  may  keep 
on  stumbling  forever.  The  very  fact  that  we  are 
securely  God's  children  should  stir  us  to  claim  our 
privileges.  The  final  perseverance  of  the  saints,  in- 
stead of  being  a  permission  to  sin,  becomes  a  sublime 
summons  to  a  holy  life.  Instead  of  stumbling,  "  let 
us  run  with  patience,"  as  Paul's  experience  else- 
where urges,  "  the  race  set  before  us,  looking  unto 
Jesus  the  author  and  finisher  of  our  faith."  He  is 
the  Finisher  as  well  as  the  Author,  and  His  heart  is 
set  on  an  hour  when  "  we  shall  awake  in  his  like- 
ness and  be  satisfied !  " 

If  Christ's  servant  is  to  do  this,  he  must  give  him- 
self to  his  cause  with  a  devotion  that  is  absolute. 
He  must  be  able  to  say  with  Paul :  "  I  die  daily."  He 
must  have  for  his  cause  a  consecration  not  less 
splendid  than  that  which  the  soldiers  on  the  battle 


DOCTRINE  OF  PERSEVERANCE     199 

front  are  showing  for  theirs.     Hear  this  war  song 
which  some  of  them  sing  as  they  go  into  battle: 

**  Blushful  ray !     Blushful  ray ! 
Dewy  dawn  of  mortal  day, 
Soon  will  sound  the  trumps  defying, 
Soon  upon  the  red  sod  lying, 
We  shall  breathe  our  lives  away. 

Joy  and  gloom;  joy  and  gloom; 
Woof  and  warp  of  mortal  loom; 
Yesternight  the  war  steed's  prancing. 
Now  the  death  shot's  fatal  glancing, 
Next  to-morrow's  quiet  tomb. 

Calm  and  still!     Calm  and  still! 
Wait  we  now  our  Father's  will; 
Now  nor  death  nor  wounds  appall  us, 
On  to  fight  should  death  befall  us, 
Each  a  soldier's  grave  shall  fill." 

The  soldier  in  whose  blood  runs  the  soul  of  that 
song  will  never  be  false  to  his  flag.  It  is  such  a 
devotion  the  Great  Captain  of  our  salvation  demands 
of  His  followers ;  and  those  who  have  it  will  not 
falter  in  the  march  nor  be  afraid  in  the  stormy  hours 
of  battle.    They  will  *'  endure  to  the  end." 


XII 

INTERNATIONALISM  —  PAUL'S  DOCTRINE 
OF  HUMANITY 


"For  God  hath  concluded  them  all  in  unbelief,  that  he 
might  have  mercy  upon  all.  O,  the  depth  of  the  riches 
both  of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God!  How  un- 
searchable are  his  judgments,  and  his  ways  past  finding 
out!  For  who  hath  known  the  mind  of  the  Lord?  or  who 
hath  been  his  counsellor?  Or  who  hath  first  given  to  him, 
and  it  shall  be  recompensed  unto  him  again?  For  of  him, 
and  through  him,  and  to  him,  are  all  things :  to  whom  be 
glory  forever.    Amen."— Romans  11:32-36. 


XII 

INTERNATIONALISM  —  PAUL'S  DOCTRINE 
OF  HUMANITY 

IN  giving  his  estimate  of  the  type  of  character 
entrance  into  the  Great  War,  a  great  daily 
newspaper  carried  at  the  head  of  its  editorial 
column  a  picture  of  the  American  flag,  and  under  the 
flag,  in  black- faced  type,  this  declaration :  "  Ameri- 
can lives,  American  money,  American  loyalty,  for 
America  and  America  only."  In  South  America 
there  is  a  society  called  the  Cordes  Fratrees,  whose 
motto  is  "  Above  all  nations,  humanity  !  "  The  South 
American  motto  is  to  be  preferred  to  the  North 
American  editorial. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  Paul's  nationalism.  He 
was  loyal  to  Israel,  so  loyal  that  he  said :  *'  I  could 
wish  that  myself  were  accursed  from  Christ  for  my 
brethren,  my  kinsmen  according  to  the  flesh."  ^  He 
seems  to  say  that  he  was  willing,  if  necessary,  to 
sacrifice  personal  salvation  for  the  sake  of  national 
welfare.  But  the  horizon  of  a  servant  of  Jesus 
Christ  must  be  as  wide  as  humanity.  Like  his 
Master,  he  must  carry  the  world  in  his  heart.  He 
must  fling  sectionalism  and  sectarianism  and  even 
nationalism  to  the  winds,  and  think  in  world-wide 
and  race-wide  terms. 

Paul's  experience  commanded  such  a  horizon.    He 

*  Romans  9 :  3. 
203 


204  INTERNATIONALISM 

is  reaching  the  zenith  of  the  creedal  part  of  this 
epistle.  He  i-s  preparing  to  say :  "  For  of  him,  and 
through  him,  and  to  him,  are  all  things:  to  whom 
be  glory  forever."  He  cannot  say  that  with  a  pas- 
sion that  concerns  itself  with  the  salvation  of  a  mere 
segment  of  the  race.  Therefore  he  writes  humanity 
into  his  creed,  and  writes :  "  For  God  hath  con- 
cluded them  all  in  unbelief,  that  he  might  have 
mercy  upon  all." 

He  takes  his  stand  upon  the  world-wide  platform 
of  his  Master.  He  espouses  the  cause  of  humanity 
in  its  entirety.  This  is  not  only  a  fundamental  fea- 
ture of  Christ's  teachings;  it  is  the  very  center  and 
circumference  of  His  teachings.  Jesus  was  an  inter- 
nationalist. His  name  for  Himself  was  Son  of  Man, 
and  in  that  title  He  proclaims  His  kinship  with  all 
mankind. 

CHRIST  AND  HUMANITY 

Let  us  examine  the  teachings  of  Jesus  on  this 
subject,  and  see  how  in  this  doctrine  of  interna- 
tionalism Paul  certifies  the  fact  that  his  spiritual  de- 
velopment has  widened  out  until  he  thinks  Christ's 
thoughts  after  Him. 

Once  to  a  group  of  Jews  Jesus  said :  "  Many 
widows  were  in  Israel  in  the  days  of  Elias,  .  .  . 
but  unto  none  of  them  was  Elias  sent,  save  unto 
Sarepta,  a  city  of  Sidon,  unto  a  woman  that  was  a 
widow.  And  many  lepers  were  in  Israel  in  the  time 
of  Eliseus  the  prophet,  and  none  of  them  was 
cleansed,  saving  Naaman  the  Syrian.*'  ^  They  lis- 
*  Luke  4 '  25-27. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  HUMANITY    205 

tened  to  Him  first  with  amazement,  then  with 
scorn  and  derision,  then  with  indignation  and  wrath. 
As  His  meaning  became  clearer,  they  mobbed  Him. 
They,  laid  violent  hands  on  Him  and  tried  to  kill 
Him.  What  was  Christ's  offense?  He  was  speak- 
ing to  an  audience  of  intense  nationalists,  of  people 
who  said :  '*  Above  all  humanity,  my  nation."  Those 
Jews  claimed  to  be  God's  only  chosen  people.  They 
lived  narrow  lives,  and  they  did  so  from  choice. 
Every  ritual  and  dogma  of  their  religion  was  in- 
tended to  separate  them  from  other  nations.  They 
regarded  contact  with  other  nations  as  a  contamina- 
tion. Their  world  ended  in  the  hills  of  their  sky-line, 
in  the  lakes  and  rivers  of  their  national  boundary. 
They  were  provincialists  who  tried  to  tether  God 
down  to  a  narrow  strip  of  earth,  and  make  of  the 
Almighty  a  Hebrew  monopoly. 

Jesus  would  widen  their  horizon.  He  would 
break  down  their  barriers  and  introduce  them  to  a 
bigger  world.  He  intimates  that  they  are  not  the 
only  people.  God  is  interested  in  other  nations, 
also.  He  would  rend  the  veil  and  scatter  the  fogs 
and  give  them  a  vision  of  God's  country  lying  be- 
yond their  sun-bathed  hills,  a  suggestion  of  the 
Almighty  outside  the  pale  and  ritual  of  Israel.  In 
doing  so.  He  takes  their  two  greatest  prophets, 
Elijah  and  Elisha,  whose  names  were  a  symbol  for 
orthodoxy,  and  shows  how  they  pushed  out  beyond 
nationalism. 

He  seems  to  say :  "  There  were  many  widows  in 
Israel  in  Elijah's  day,  widows  who  need  a  prophet's 
visit,  but  he  passed  them  all  by  and  honored  a  pagan 


206  INTERNATIONALISM 

woman  in  a  heathen  city.  He  must  have  thought 
there  was  some  good  outside  his  own  nation.  There 
were  many  lepers  in  Israel  in  Elisha's  day,  lepers 
who  cried  for  help  and  who  longed  for  the  healing 
touch  of  the  man  of  God.  If  Jehovah  was  for  the 
Jews  only,  why  did  he  not  cure  some  of  his  own 
lepers?  Yet  they  were  passed  by,  and  the  only  one 
cleansed  was  an  ancestral  enemy  from  an  alien 
race."  He  means  that  God  is  bigger  than  Israel,  that 
He  is  for  Zidonians  and  Syrians  as  well  as  for  Jews, 
that  He  cares  for  the  needy  of  other  races,  that  His 
country  is  bigger  than  one  little  land  of  promise. 
He  would  have  them  shake  off  their  provincialism, 
and  think  of  others,  and  consider  humanity. 

This  was  not  an  occasional  teaching  of  Christ. 
It  was  a  message  He  was  constantly  proclaiming. 
God  is  for  all.  He  is  the  God  of  the  Gentile  as 
well  as  the  Jew.  One  day  a  Roman  soldier  believed 
in  Him,  and  Christ  was  so  enthusiastic  over  the 
man's  faith  that  He  painted  a  picture  of  world  re- 
demption when  "  many  should  come  from  the  east 
and  west,  and  sit  down  with  Abraham  and  Isaac  and 
Jacob  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  ^  On  another  day 
He  healed  ten  lepers.  Of  the  ten,  but  one  returned 
to  give  thanks,  and  that  one  was  a  Samaritan,^  the 
member  of  a  despised  race.  On  another  day  He 
sat  by  Jacob's  well,  and  to  a  woman  of  this  same 
despised  race,  Jesus  revealed  the  great  truth  of  the 
spirituality  of  worship,  and  said :  ''  The  hour  cometh 
when  ye  shall  neither  in  this  mountain,  nor  yet  at 

*  Matt.  8:  II.  *  Luke  17:  16. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  HUMANITY    207 

Jerusalem,  worship  the  Father.  .  .  .  God  is  a 
spirit,  and  they  that  worship  him  must  worship  him 
in  spirit  and  in  truth."  ^ 

What  is  all  this  but  Christ's  emphasis  on  a  con- 
cern that  transcends  national  welfare?  In  the 
parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan,  the  hero  is  outside 
the  pale.  In  Peter's  housetop  vision,  the  scales  fall 
from  his  eyes  as  he  exclaims :  "  I  perceive  that  God 
is  no  respecter  of  persons;  but  in  every  nation  he 
that  feareth  him  and  worketh  righteousness  is  ac- 
cepted with  him !  "  ^  Then  as  if  to  cHmax  His  teach- 
ing, when  the  hour  comes  for  Christ  to  lay  the  su- 
preme duty  on  His  followers,  He  does  so  in  terms 
whose  internationalism  is  unmistakable.  He  says: 
*'  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel  to 
every  creature." 

This  was  the  thought  that  Christ  was  ever  flinging 
in  the  faces  of  those  narrow,  proud,  exclusive, 
bigoted,  intolerant  nationalists,  who,  had  the  term 
been  coined  in  that  age,  would  have  called  them- 
selves ''  supermen."  Jesus  would  say  to  them : 
"  You  are  not  the  only  people.  Your  rights  are  not 
the  only  ones  that  are  sacred.  You  must  be  more 
than  nationalists;  you  must  be  internationalists. 
You  must  do  more  than  glorify  Israel;  you  must 
serve  humanity." 

A  DESPISED   MESSAGE 

The  Jews  despised  Christ's  message.  They  were, 
and  have  always  been,  intense  nationalists.    Perhaps 

'  John  4 :  21,  24.  '  Acts  10 :  34,  35. 


208  INTERNATIONALISM 

in  no  race  on  earth  has  this  spirit  been  so  highly 
developed  as  in  the  race  from  which  Paul  came. 
Nothing  has  been  able  to  stamp  out  this  trait  in  the 
Jew.  He  has  endured  the  bitterest  persecution,  he 
has  suffered  the  loss  of  everything,  but  he  has  clung 
tenaciously  to  his  heritage  as  the  offspring  of  Abra- 
ham. He  has  declined  to  sell  his  birthright,  and  he 
has  visited  a  boundless  scorn  and  contempt  on  the 
apostate  and  the  renegade. 

This  nationalism  had  a  holy  origin.  It  was  God's 
method  of  lifting  Israel  out  of  heathenism.  A  care- 
ful study  of  His  dealings  with  the  Jews  shows  at 
every  step  an  effort  to  build  barriers  between  them 
and  the  surrounding  nations.  The  very  country  in 
which  they  dwelt  was  eloquent  of  isolation.  On  the 
south  and  east  were  the  desert,  on  the  north  the 
snow-capped  peaks  of  Lebanon,  and  on  the  west  the 
great  sea.  Their  rehgious  ceremonies  were  all  ex- 
clusive. It  was  God's  method  to  protect  them 
against  contaminating  contact  with  idolatrous  and 
licentious  nations  and  fit  them  for  their  high  destiny 
as  the  religious  leaders  of  the  world. 

This  intense  nationalism  has  been  to  the  Jew  at 
once  his  glory  and  his  confusion.  It  has  made  him 
heroic.  His  devotion  to  his  own  cannot  be  chal- 
lenged. But  it  has  been  the  occasion  of  most  of 
his  troubles.  The  Jew  has  declined  to  blend  with 
other  races.  Wherever  he  has  gone,  he  has  remained 
a  Jew.  He  may  be  a  German,  but  he  is  a  German 
Jew;  an  Englishman,  but  he  is  an  EngHsh  Jew;  an 
American,  but  he  is  an  American  Jew.  He  has  re- 
mained  the   one  unassimilated   and  unassimilatable 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  HUMANITY     209 

element  of  the  population.  This  has  made  him  an 
object  of  mistrust,  and  later  of  persecution.  This 
is  also  probably  the  supreme  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
Christian  missions  among  the  Jews.  Their  antago- 
nism is  not  so  much  to  the  teachings  and  spirit  of 
Jesus.  Indeed,  many  applaud  the  teachings  and 
honor  Christ  as  a  great  and  good  man,  but  they  feel 
that  to  become  Christians  is  to  repudiate  their  na- 
tion, and  prove  recreant  to  tlie  blood  which  runs  in 
their  veins.  Paul  had  to  overcome  all  this  in  becom- 
ing a  Christian,  and  the  fact  that  at  the  outstart  he 
boldly  proclaimed  himself  as  the  apostle  to  the  Gen- 
tiles is  significant  of  the  bigness  and  revolutionary 
character  of  his  Christian  experience. 

IS   NATIONALISM    SACRED? 

Was  Paul  mistaken  in  this  change  ?  Is  nationalism 
such  a  sacred  thing?  Granted  that  it  had  holy  uses 
when  Israel  was  a  primitive  race  just  out  of  bon- 
dage, is  it  so  to-day?  Granted  that  it  was  needed 
when  Israel  was  to  be  kept  from  contamination,  and 
the  divine  effort  was  to  raise  up  a  people  from  whom 
were  to  come  the  Bible  and  the  Messiah,  is  it  needed 
to-day,  when  God's  manifest  plan  is  to  unite  all  men 
in  a  great  fraternity  of  humanity? 

The  question  has  a  bigger  audience.  It  is  for 
Gentile  as  well  as  Jew.  Is  nationalism  the  holiest 
thing  for  any  people?  Is  that  country  the  greatest 
whose  motto  is :  "  Above  humanity  my  own  nation," 
that  regards  self-preservation  as  its  holiest  task,  and 
national  development  as  its  sublimest  achievement? 
Is  it  really  desirable  to  be  a  peculiar  people?    Is  it 


210  INTERNATIONALISM 

great  to  be  exclusive,  to  be  satisfied  with  oneself,  to 
erect  barriers  even  when  there  is  no  arrogance,  to 
insist  on  tribal  deities  in  the  presence  of  racial  rela- 
tions? The  question  is  not.  Is  this  natural?  but.  Is 
it  best  ?  Is  it  holy  ?  Is  it  Christian  ?  Are  those  na- 
tions greatest  that  think  only  of  their  own  destiny, 
that  sacrifice  every  principle  and  scruple  to  self- 
advancement?  Or  are  those  nations  greatest  which 
are  concerned  for  all  nations?  Christ  looked  be- 
yond nationahsm.  He  declared  that  there  is  some- 
thing better.  He  taught  that  the  holiest  bond  is  not 
that  of  creed  or  color  or  sect  or  class  or  caste.  The 
holiest  is  the  human  bond  which  binds  one  not  to 
a  fraction  or  a  segment  of  the  race,  but  to  all  men. 
As  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ,  Paul  felt  that  he  could 
not  concern  himself  with  less. 

Christianity's  creed  is  international 

Christianity  does  not  belittle  nationalism.  It  glo- 
rifies it.  But  it  does  not  stop  there.  Paul  was  not 
ashamed  of  being  a  Jew.  He  was  proud  of  it.  He 
was  ready  to  lay  down  not  only  his  life,  but  to  sur- 
render his  immortal  hope,  for  Israel.  But  his  sym- 
pathies were  bigger  than  one  little  land,  and  his  life 
was  laid  on  the  altar  for  humanity.  The  greatest 
things  are  not  those  that  can  be  monopolized  by  the 
few,  or  pre-empted  by  privileged  classes.  They  are 
those  which  all  men  hold  in  common,  and  which  are 
level  to  the  reach  of  any  life. 

Internationalism  is  greater  than  nationalism,  since 
rights  are  sacred  not  because  they  are  national  but 
because  they  are  human.     One  nation  is  as  sacred 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  HUMANITY     211 

as  another.  Differences  of  color  and  creed  and  lan- 
guage do  not  affect  rights.  Basal  needs  are  the 
same.  Injustice  hurts  a  black  man  as  much  as  it 
does  his  brother  under  a  white  skin.  Persecution 
tortures  the  Armenian  as  much  as  if  he  were  a  Eu- 
ropean. The  horrors  of  war  which  have  devastated 
Poland  and  Belgium  are  not  easier  to  bear  because 
these  countries  are  not  German  or  British.  Great 
needs  are  not  national,  but  racial,  and  basic  human 
rights  are  built  along  the  lines  of  need  rather  than 
of  privilege. 

Again,  internationalism  is  a  holier  thing  than  na- 
tionalism because  racial  completeness  includes  all 
national  values.  Each  nation  possesses  some  pre- 
eminent element  of  merit  in  the  human  family.  The 
Germans  have  their  distinctive  virtues,  the  French 
theirs,  the  British  theirs.  It  is  so  with  the  black 
man  and  the  white,  with  the  Oriental  and  the  Occi- 
dental; but  in  humanity  all  these  national  values 
blend  and  become  one. 

Internationalism  is  back  of  Christ's  plea  for  unity, 
and  of  His  program  for  missions.  It  is  not  possible 
to-  live  near  the  cross  and  think  in  less  than  human 
terms. 

The  great  leaders  and  servants  of  the  race  have 
been  internationalists.  The  great  prophets,  whether 
ancient  or  modern,  have  dreamed  not  of  a  national 
world,  not  of  the  world  of  a  red  man  or  a  yellow 
man  or  a  white  man,  but  of  a  world  in  which  char- 
acter shall  reign,  and  where  humanity  shall  come  to 
its  own.  The  great  statesmen  have  been  out  not  for 
autocracy,  but  for  democracy.     They  have   cham- 


212  INTERNATIONALISM 

pioned  the  cause  not  of  the  classes,  but  of  the 
masses.  The  great  writers  have  been  personalities 
responsive  to  all  appeals.  The  great  humanitarians 
have  not  been  hide-bound  or  sect-bound  or  class- 
bound.  They  have  felt  in  their  veins  the  pulses  of 
the  race  kin.  The  great  poets  have  sung  all  moods, 
and  pleaded  for  the  happiness  of  all.  How,  there- 
fore, can  one  be  the  servant  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and 
be  satisfied  to  dwell  in  a  smaller  zone?  A  Chris- 
tian is  one  who  can  say :  "  Nothing  that  is  human 
is  foreign  to  me." 

INTERNATIONALISM   AND   PATRIOTISM 

We  must  interpret  our  patriotism  in  terms  of 
humanity,  if  it  is  to  measure  up  either  to  Christian 
duty  or  human  hope. 

America  has  been  getting  a  new  birth  of  pa- 
triotism in  the  days  of  world  war.  This  must  be 
apparent  to  the  most  superficial  student  of  current 
events.  All  at  once  the  nation  has  leaped  up  into 
a  new  Hfe.  The  resolute,  red-blooded,  grimly  de- 
fiant, splendidly  reliant  America  of  the  present  is  no 
more  the  ease-loving,  pleasure-seeking,  profit-sharing, 
pacifist-worshiping,  pussy-footed,  trouble-shunning 
America  of  the  recent  past  than  a  battleship  is  a 
jellyfish. 

We  have  looked  on  at  the  other  nations  engaged 
in  the  great  war,  and  we  have  been  impressed  with 
some  of  the  blessings  that  have  come  to  them.  We 
have  seen  Great  Britain  escape  threatened  dismem- 
berment and  internal  revolution,  and  become  uni- 
fied and  solidified  as  never  before.     We  have  seen 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  HUMANITY   213 

gay,  pleasure-loving  France  that  had  canceled  re- 
ligion from  its  program  and  confiscated  the  churches, 
return  once  more  to  God's  altar,  and  with  more  of 
a  loving  faith.  We  have  seen  Russia  shake  down 
a  throne  of  autocratic  power,  and  recall  her  exiles 
from  bleak  Siberia,  and  emerge  from  a  reign  of 
despotic  tyranny  which  had  made  the  name  of  Rus- 
sia a  synonym  for  oppression.  We  have  watched 
Belgium.  We  have  watched  it  with  an  aching  heart 
and  with  a  hot  indignation  against  the  beastly  bru- 
tality that  has  made  desolate  that  little  land.  But 
as  we  have  watched  the  heroism  of  Belgium,  as  we 
have  heard  her  leaders  say  that  the  people  have 
no  regrets  for  the  course  they  have  followed,  as  we 
have  seen  the  Belgian  army  rehabilitate  itself  and 
become  once  more  a  fighting  unit  at.  the  battle  front, 
we  have  concluded  that  Belgium  must  emerge  from 
the  war  immortal.  As  we  turn  from  a  survey  of 
other  nations  to  look  at  ourselves,  it  is  easy  to  see 
that  America  is  becoming  a  finer  nation.  Life  is 
becoming  invested  for  all  the  people  with  a  more 
earnest  purpose.  We  are  adopting  simpler  and 
saner  methods  of  living.  We  are  learning  to  give 
in  a  sacrificial  way.  We  are  acquiring  government 
control  and  regulation  of  national  abuses.  But  in 
addition  to  all  this,  we  are  getting  a  new  birth  of 
patriotism,  and  this  of  itself  is  more  than  a  com- 
pensation for  the  war  cost. 

What  is  patriotism?  It  is  being  true  to  the  flag. 
It  is  being  loyal  to  the  sacred  emblem  of  the  nation's 
honor.  And  it  is  being  this  not  because  of  what  a 
piece  of  bunting  is  in  itself,  and  not  merely  because 


214  INTERNATIONALISM 

of  the  flag's  associations.  When  one  thinks  of  the 
fields  over  which  the  colors  have  floated,  of  the  times 
they  have  summoned  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the 
nation  to  heroism,  that  is  enough  to  fill  us  with  a 
high  devotion.  But  the  flag  stands  for  a  country's 
cause.  In  the  great  war  it  stands  for  what  the  coun- 
try fights  for. 

What  is  that?  What  led  America  to  enter  that 
world  conflict? 

The  freedom  of  the  seas  was  the  primal  issue. 
We  were  not  willing  to  surrender  that  at  the  behest 
of  the  submarine  raiders.  It  was  something  for 
which  we  had  been  contending  for  the  past  three 
hundred  years,  and  we  were  not  willing  for  Ger- 
many nor  any  other  nation  wantonly  to  violate  it. 
Both  Germany  and  Great  Britain  did  violate  it  so 
far  as  property  values  were  concerned,  but  property 
is  a  thing  that  can  be  restored.  Human  life,  how- 
ever, is  entirely  diflferent,  and  when  the  first  Ameri- 
can life  went  down  before  that  Teutonic  campaign 
of  butchery  and  piracy  on  the  high  seas,  we  said : 
"  This  is  more  than  God  means  us  to  stand,"  and 
we  went  in. 

But  the  issue  soon  widened  out,  and  America 
soon  found  herself  fighting  for  the  right  of  free  peo- 
ple to  govern  themselves.  This  is  the  only  issue  for 
which  we  have  ever  fought.  It  was  the  issue  when 
our  fathers  fought  at  Bunker  Hill  and  King's  Moun- 
tain. It  was  the  issue  when  the  sons  of  the  North 
and  of  the  South  fought  the  war  that  made  the  na- 
tion one.  It  was  the  issue  that  Dewey's  guns  shot 
into  the  Spanish  fleet  in  Manila  Bay.    And  it  is  the 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  HUMANITY    215 

issue  for  which  American  soldiers  unhmber  their 
guns  on  the  French  front. 

The  issue  soon  narrowed  as  well  as  widened,  and 
America  found  herself  fighting  the  thing  that  wasted 
Belgium,  that  murdered  Edith  Cavell,  that  fired  on 
hospital  ships,  that  poisoned  Red  Cross  bandages, 
that  killed  children  at  their  school  desks 'and  called 
it  war,  that  stoops  to  anything  and  stops  at  nothing 
to  accomplish  its  ends,  and  that  would  if  it  could 
destroy  freedom  and  slay  mercy  from  the  earth. 

These  are  the  things  for  which  the  flag  stands,  and 
patriotism  is  the  espousal  of  these  things.  Is  it  any 
wonder  the  flag  is  sacred? 

"  Here  comes  the  flag ! 
Hail  it! 

Who  dares  to  drag  or  trail  it? 
Give  it  hurrahs — 
Three  for  the  stars, 
Three  for  the  bars, 
Uncover  your  head  to  it! 
The  soldiers  who  tread  to  it 
Shout  at  the  sight  of  it, 
The  justice  and  right  of  it, 
The  unsullied  white  of  it, 
And  tyranny's  dread  of  it. 

Here  comes  the  flag! 

Cheer  it! 

Valley  and  crag  shall  hear  it. 

Fathers  shall  bless  it, 

Children  caress  it! 

All  shall  maintain  it. 

No  one  shall  stain  it. 

Cheers  for  the  sailors  that  fought  on  the  wave  for  it! 

Cheers  for  the  soldiers  that  always  were  brave  for  it! 

Tears  for  the  men  that  went  down  to  the  grave  for  it! 

Here  comes  the  flag ! 

The  blue  and  the  red  of  it!"' 

'  Arthur  Macy. 


216  INTERNATIONALISM 

Patriotism,  however,  is  more  than  this.  It  is  being 
loyal  to  the  national  ideal,  to  that  for  which  America 
stands  not  only  in  times  of  war  but  in  times  of 
peace,  not  only  with  her  armies  and  navies,  but  with 
her  homes  and  with  her  churches.    What  is  that  ? 

It  is  Humanity.  It  is  the  sacred  rights  of  the 
people  not  because  of  color  or  race  or  creed,  not 
because  they  are  citizens  of  a  big  nation  or  of  a 
little  nation,  but  simply  because  they  are  people.  It 
is  that  there  is  something  greater  than  nationalism; 
it  is  internationalism.  It  is  that  no  nation  has  a 
right  to  exploit  other  peoples  for  its  own  advantage ; 
that  no  nation,  great  or  small,  is  licensed  by  the 
stress  of  its  own  need  for  national  preservation  or 
promotion  to  trample  on  rights  that  are  human. 

This  is  the  great  American  ideal.  It  runs  in  the 
blood  of  our  national  life.  It  is  what  we  have  stood 
for  in  our  eras  of  peace,  in  our  chapters  of  diplo- 
macy, in  our  efforts  to  promote  international  good 
will  and  courts  of  arbitration,  and  it  is  what  we 
must  not  repudiate  in  time  of  war,  nor  forget  in  the 
day  of  hot  anger  against  a  nation  that  adopts  the 
role  of  Cain,  among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  The 
Cain  nation  will  bear  the  mark  of  shame  in  its  fore- 
head, but  even  then  Christian  nations  must  not  for- 
get that  ''  God  has  made  of  one  blood  all  nations 
of  men  for  to  dwell  on  all  of  the  face  of  the  earth," 
nor  cease  to  pray  and  strive  for  reconciliation. 

America  has  been  fitted  in  a  peculiar  way  for 
leading  the  world  toward  racial  unity  and  human 
brotherhood,  for  all  nationalities  have  mingled  in  the 
making  of  America,  until  in  our  blood  we  hear  the 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  HUMANITY    217 

call,  not  of  the  white  man  or  the  red  man  or  the 
black  man,  not  of  Anglo-Saxon  or  Teuton  or  Serb, 
but  of  humanity. 

Our  flag  flies  therefore  for  more  than  a  victory 
over  Germany,  but  in  a  deeper  sense  for  a  victory 
for  Germany  over  herself,  when  she  shall  have 
turned  with  horror  from  the  spectacle  of  her  own 
frightfulness,  when  she  shall  have  passed  through 
the  fire  and  been  purged  of  the  dross,  when  she 
shall  have  experienced  a  new  Reformation  and 
learned  that  deism  is  not  Christianity  and  that  the 
creed  of  Mahomet  is  not  the  beatitude  of  the  gentle 
Christ,  when  she  shall  have  listened  back  to  Luther's 
day  and  begun  to  sing  once  more :  ''  With  force  of 
arms  we  nothing  can,"  and  when  she  shall  have 
discovered,  not :  "  Blessed  are  the  mighty,  blessed 
are  the  merciless,  blessed  are  the  frightful,"  but 
"  Blessed  are  the  meek,  for  they  shall  inherit  the 
earth." 

American  patriotism  is  the  espousal  of  human 
brotherhood.  It  rises  above  all  color  and  creedal 
and  national  lines.  "  America  asks  nothing  for 
herself,"  says  President  Wilson,  "  but  what  she  has 
a  right  to  ask  for  humanity  itself."  We  must  not 
forget  this  in  the  time  of  war.  Only  in  this  spirit 
can  a  victory  be  won  that  is  worth  while.  Only  in 
this  spirit  can  the  wasted  world  be  rebuilt.  If  we 
are  ever  to  see  the  day  which  sings : 

"  Fold  the  banners, 
Smelt  the  guns, 
Love  rules, 

Her  gentle  purpose  runs," 


218  INTERNATIONALISM 

we  must  listen  to  Him  Who  says :  **  A  new  com- 
mandment give  I  unto  you,  that  ye  love  one 
another." 

Dr.  Macdonald  of  the  Toronto  Globe  is  fond  of 
telling  a  story  about  an  interview  of  Dr.  Henry  Van 
Dyke  with  Lord  Tennyson.  As  they  separated,  the 
great  English  poet  presented  a  volume  of  his  poems 
to  his  American  critic.  Dr.  Van  Dyke  asked  him 
to  write  on  the  flyleaf  the  one  thing  of  all  that  he 
had  written  that  he  thought  the  greatest.  Tennyson 
wrote : 

"Love  took  up  the  harp  of  life, 
And  smote  on  all  the  chords  with  might, 
Smote  the  chord  of  self,  that  trembling 
Passed  in  music  out  of  sight." 

There  are  two  monster  passions  in  human  nature, — 
patriotism  and  religion.  If  patriotism  is  loyalty  to 
the  cause  of  humanity,  the  two  are  one,  for  both 
seek  the  same  end,  a  world  in  which  all  men  are 
brothers.  Someone  has  a  fancy  of  how  the  design 
of  our  flag  came  about.  It  was  caught  from  the 
sunrise.  Yonder  along  the  east  some  bars  of  sullen 
cloud  have  been  shot  through  with  red  fire  by  the 
rays  of  the  rising  sun.  Between  these  are  layers 
of  fleecy  mist, — snow-white, — and  so  we  have  the 
red  and  the  white  of  the  flag;  and  yonder  is  a  patch 
of  blue  in  which  the  night  stars  are  still  showing 
their  shining  faces.  Thus  on  the  sunrise,  nature 
paints  the  sacred  emblem  of  our  nation's  honor.  It 
is  probably  merely  a  fancy,  and  yet  there  is  a  real 
sense  in  which  the  fla^  has  come  down  to  us  from 
heaven,  for  the  thing  for  which  it  stands  is  a  holy 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  HUMANITY    219 

thing;  it  is  a  world  dominated  by  the  law  of  good 
will,  in  which  men  recognize  that  they  are  brothers. 
Hence  we  must  keep  the  cross  and  the  flag  together, 
for  they  are  one  in  their  goal  for  humanity,  and 
only  as  this  goal  is  reached  shall  we  have  an  age 
in  which 

"The  war  drums  throb  no  longer, 
And  the  battle   flags  are   furled; 
In  the  Parliament  of  man, 
The  Federation  of  the  world," 

and  in  which  society  shall  be  sufficiently  civilized  to 
see  that  God's  will  is  best,  "  for  of  him,  and  through 
him,  and  to  him  are  all  things;  to  whom  be  glory 
forever.    Amen." 


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A  study  of  Paul's  unfailing  optimism  and  spirit  of  rejoicing. 
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tation of  this  fact.  The  result  is  a  new  evidence  of  the 
value  which  may  be  set  on  the  work  of  this  accomplished 
lilew  Testament  scholar. 

JAMES  H.  PUNHAM  Dean  ef  College  of  Liberal  Arts 

—————————  and  Sciences,  Philadelphia 

John  Fourteen 

The  Greatest  Chapter  of  the  Greatest  Book.    Net  $1.50. 

"Will  be  Yrelcotned  everywhere  by  earnest  students  of  the 
Bible.  On  every  page  is  revealed  the  keen  discriminating 
mind  of  a  scholar,  wh»  ever  exalts  Christ  and  magnifies  the 
Word  of  God  above  every  other  message." — Baptist  Standard. 

JVILLIAM  HIRAM  FOULKES,  P.P. 

Sunset  by  the  Lakeside 

Vesper  Messages  to  Young  People.  Boards,  net  60c. 

Under  this  general  title,  a  number  of  devotional  messages 
such  as  are  eminently  suited  to  Young  People's  Conferences, 
are  brought  together  in  attractive  and  useful  form.  Into  these 
brief  addresses.  Dr.  Foulkes  introduces  some  really  choice, 
reverential  thoughts  such  as  cannot  fail  of  proving  helpful  to 
everybody  into  whose  hands  they  come. 

YOUNG  FOLKS'  BIBLE  STORIES 

LETTICE   BELL  Author  of'Goto-Bed  Stories^  etc. 

Bible  Battles 

Israel's  Victories  Retold  for  Young  Folks.  i2mo, 
cloth,  net  $1.25. 

Commencing  with  the  victories  of  Joshua,  a  stirring  pano- 
rama of  Old  Testament  battle  scenes  is  here  presented.  The 
narratives  are  all  simply  and  effectively  told  in  language  pe- 
culiarly suited  to  juvenile  readers. 

APA  R.  HABERSHON 

Hidden  Pictures 

Or,  How  the  New  Testament  is  Concealed  in  the 
Old  Testament.    i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

In  a  series  of  delightfully-drawn  pictures,  Miss  Habershon 
presents  some  of  the  most  arresting  and  salient  incidents  in 
the  history  of  ancient  Israel.  These  she  employs  to  show  how 
wonderfully  they  foreshadow  and  pre-figure  the  coming  of  Im- 
manuel,  as  related  in  the  Gospels. 


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